Bookshare still does offer the Internet Archive as a source for content.
Look in the advanced search and it is a combo box right at the top of
the search form labeled what collection should I search. Use the combo
box to toggle back and forth between Bookshare and the Internet Archive.
The trouble is that there is no reason to bother with a search of the
Internet Archive right now. Their Daisy books are broken and they are
very slow to fix the problem. The last time it happened they took about
a year to fix it. Here is what I did. I have a folder in my bookmarks
for Open Library books I want to read. The last time their Daisy books
broke I checked back frequently to see if they had it fixed. I would
just go to one of the books I had bookmarked and try to download it.
After a while my checking became less frequent. Then one day I tried it
out and it downloaded and I had a perfectly readable Daisy copy. It had
been about a year, actually a little more than a year, since I had been
able to do that.
Well, it's broke again. I am not sure how many months it has been this
time, but if the last time is any indication it must be getting fairly
close to being fixed again. I suppose you can do what I did. Just
bookmark a book you are interested in and check back every now and then.
It might not hurt to use their help links to let them know that you
can't download their Daisy books too. At least they will know that there
is actually an interest out here in those books and that just might make
them raise the priority of fixing it.
On 2/4/2022 11:34 PM, David Goldfield wrote:
I never realized that Bookshare once offered the Internet Archive as a source for content. It is regrettable if this source can no longer be accessed as the IA has an amazingly large collection of material but offers a very unintuitive interface. I have also found books on that site that weren't available in an accessible format everywhere else.
Someone on another list had mentioned that his Bookport Plus player used to have an option to download content from the Internet Archive but that it, too, stopped working. That suggests that the API may have broken down at some point meaning that third party sites like Bookshare aren't able to access it. Of course, that's just a possibility and I haven't confirmed this.
I don't want to veer too much off course as I know this list is meant to discuss Bookshare and not other services. What I will say is that if the Internet Archive's Daisy download fails as it does for me you can try choosing to borrow the book as an encrypted PDF file which can then be opened in Adobe Digital Editions. <https://www.adobe.com/solutions/ebook/digital-editions.html>
David Goldfield,
Blindness Assistive Technology Specialist
NVDA Certified, 2019
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www.DavidGoldfield.org
-----Original Message-----
From: bookshare-discuss-bounce@xxxxxxxxxxxxx <bookshare-discuss-bounce@xxxxxxxxxxxxx> On Behalf Of Joshua Hendrickson
Sent: Thursday, February 3, 2022 9:19 AM
To: bookshare-discuss@xxxxxxxxxxxxx
Subject: [bookshare-discuss] Re: Internet Archive and Bookshare
I'd recommend calling bookshare directly. I haven't had much to do with the daisy books on archive.org. I personally couldn't find anything from them I wanted. However, it is a shame that that collection is gone. I know they had loads of books.
On 2/3/22, Andy Shields <ashields2@xxxxxxx <mailto:ashields2@xxxxxxx>> wrote:
> Good morning,
>
> "The Archive" is still listed as an option under "Advanced Search." So
> I've looked for specific authors whose books have been there, and
> then, specific titles by those authors. All attempts refer me back to "Advanced Search"
> without results.
>
> I don't know what format options Bookshare had in place with the
> Archive in the past. I do know that their large number of DAISY books
> are now either gone or inaccessible. Attempts to download them from
> their own website consistently produce the message "Encryption
> failed", and a person I contacted at Internet Archive two years ago
> said that "the process was broken."
>
> So: are titles from the Archive still accessible through Bookshare in
> some way, and if so, how? In spite of their inconsistent quality and
> scanning errors, they had a lot of books that you couldn't find
> anywhere else in accessible formats, and it really is a shame if they're all gone for good.
> If Archive titles aren't available, why is the option still shown
> under Advanced Search? I'm not annoyed, just bemused. I think I may
> have sent this question to the list before, but got no response.
> Thanks for whatever help someone can give me, especially some of you
> who have a close working relationship with Bookshare.
>
> Andy
--
Joshua Hendrickson
Joshua Hendrickson
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