PLEASE DISTRIBUTE WIDELY Friends of Bookshare News Wire: January 10, 2008 Indianapolis, Indiana USA Topic: Benetech Engineers Discuss Bookshare Improvement Tools Presenters: John Brugge. johnbrugge@xxxxxxxxxxxxx 608-206-4773 Meghan Larson . meghanlarson@xxxxxxxxxxxx 320-420-6199 Friends of Bookshare are really excited about the special program planned for next Tuesday evening as it will focus on research the Bookshare Engineering Group is doing to develop tools that could better connect existing Bookshare users and make others aware of Bookshare who might be able to use it. John and Meghan will briefly describe the three broad areas of tools they have been researching and what they see as some possible application of technology, i.e., desktop-based "widgets" to interact with Bookshare content, web browser-based "widgets" or "plugins" to allow searching Bookshare when not at the Bookshare site, and social networking applications for sites such as MySpace or Facebook to share reading lists with friends. Following that overview, however, the major portion of the time will be devoted to interaction with Bookshare members and volunteers. In other words, the primary purpose of this event is to provide input on whether these types of technologies are ones that you would see yourself using. In addition, they want to hear about what tools in these areas users have had any experience with, and how accessible they have been. Benetech is doing everything possible to involve booksharians in the improvement planning process. Hopefully each of you will consider this to be a responsibility, as well as an opportunity, to ensure Bookshare truly meets the needs of members and non-members alike. You can do this by planning to attend and participate in the meeting and by sharing your ideas during the discussion. Date: Tuesday, January 15, 2008 Time: 6:00 p.m. Pacific, 7:00 p.m. Mountain, 8:00 p.m. Central and 9:00 p.m. Eastern, and elsewhere in the world Wednesday GMT 2:00 Where: Friends of Bookshare Community Room at: http://conference321.com/masteradmin/room.asp?id=rs7867a2369e0e There are no membership requirements, no direct costs, no need to pre-register, and no passwords required. All you need is a PC running Windows 2000 or later, an Internet connection, a sound card, and speakers. Since this is an audio conference, a microphone will be needed to allow you to interact audibly with the presenter and each other. However, text chat is also available. If you are a first-time user of the Accessible World online conferencing software, there is a small, safe software program that you need to download and then run. A link to the software is available on the entry screen of each room.. Note: Archives of events are available for download at http://www.friendsofbookshare.org Media Contact: Pat (Patricia) Price, Planning Committee Chair Friends of Bookshare http://www.friendsofbookshare.org 317-254-1185 pat@xxxxxxxxxxxx To unsubscribe from this list send a blank Email to bksvol-discuss-request@xxxxxxxxxxxxx put the word 'unsubscribe' by itself in the subject line. To get a list of available commands, put the word 'help' by itself in the subject line.