Dear Booksharian Friends,
Those words, "See long synopsis," which appeared on several titles on
Sunday's new books list frustrate and annoy me every time I read them.
From yesterday's list I uploaded 6 books but none of my choices had those
dreaded words in their descriptions.
Your valuable volunteer and staff efforts have given me so many wonderful,
usually unexpected, books to read, I don't take time from my volunteering
reading, and real life to look up titles that refer me to the long
synopsis.
I also don't punish myself either to make a point by failing to read books
I recognize that I like whose authors or titles I already know, just
because the submittor and validator didn't take time to write any kind of
helpful short synopsis for them. But, If I'm not familiar with the book, I
don't bother to track down a long synopsis. If volunteers can't be
bothered to write a helpful short synopsis, I conclude they don't care
much about that book and don't waste unnecessary time finding out about it
because I think it has a good chance of not being carefully prepared.
If a volunteer cares about a book, you'd think she or he would want others
to benefit from their work. You'd think they would hope many readers will
select their book and it will be widely read. Why put your own book in the
seconds bin by not writing an inviting and/or informative short synopsis
for it? The short synopsis is the book's best publicity.
In other discussions some volunteers have used the excuse that they can't
write a long synopsis because they haven't read the book. By my personal
work standards That already shows a considerable amount of lack of caring.
However given the volunteer isn't planning to read the book, this excuse
still doesn't hold up. Why not formulate a short synopsis by summarizing
that famous long synopsis to which they direct potential readers. It
wouldn't take too long to dash out some brief high points mentioned in
that long synopsis. It's only 200 characters or less we're hoping for.
I'll always appreciate everyone's work and am not targeting an individual
since I didn't look up any of these books to identify the volunteers who
write "See long synopsis." I wouldn't dream of trying to manipulate the
volunteer community or the staff to weigh in on this issue or to institute
major changes according to my personal guidelines and desires. It's my
hope that expressing my opinion might result in some books in the future
being given the more detailed short synopses they deserve. And if that
happens or not, at least I've expressed my feelings.
I assume all of us have the good of Bookshare at heart. I've written this
pointed and fervent message from the perspective of both a volunteer and a
reader who loves Bookshare. I'm stating my opinion to encourage volunteers
to try a little harder to attract readers to their books and to make book
browsing more satisfying to me.
Always with love,
Lissi
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