It'st a great thing I didn't burst anyone's bubble or confirm this is
true. Too bad I don't have a scanner that works, well back to
proofreading I go for now until I get a new one, yay!
On 8/16/10, Scott Rains <scottr@xxxxxxxxxxxx> wrote:
> At the risk of some literate Bookshare volunteer telling me that this
sounds
> like a rule from Alice in Wonderland, unfortunately the answer is "no." The
> source for volunteer-submitted books must be a physical book.
>
> Scott Rains
> Benetech Fellow, Bookshare Volunteer Department
> ________________________________________
> From: bksvol-discuss-bounce@xxxxxxxxxxxxx
> [bksvol-discuss-bounce@xxxxxxxxxxxxx] On Behalf Of Judy s.
> [cherryjam@xxxxxxxxxxxxxxxx]
> Sent: Monday, August 16, 2010 12:59 PM
> To: bksvol-discuss@xxxxxxxxxxxxx
> Subject: [bksvol-discuss] Re: Clarification: Elegible books for bookshare
>
> Scott, how about this situation regarding a PDF?
>
> The author has published a printed version of a book. The author
> then decides to make available, via the web, at no charge, a
> complete PDF version of the book. The PDF is unreadable for the
> blind, however, because each page of the book has been reproduced
> in the PDF as an image of that page. The entire book is contained
> within the PDF, including title page, blank pages - everything.
>
> Could a volunteer take that PDF and run it through OCRing
> software and then submit the book?
>
> Judy s.
>
> Scott Rains wrote:
>> This discussion helps explain why specificity is essential. Without access
>> to the source a quote a great deal of time is consumed asking for
>> clarification and, when that is not forthcoming, speculating out of
>> context.
>>
>> The link to the relevant Chapter of the manual is below:
>>
>> http://tinyurl.com/26r4ht5
>>
>> The relevant subsection is "c. Cannot be proprietary digital books"
>>
>> Here reference to "Digital books from other accessible book providers..."
>> means the actual files from a publisher or other library such as from
>> "such as an RFB&D digital book or a Library of Congress (NLS) Web-Braille
>> book." These actual files cannot be submitted to be entered into the
>> Bookshare library. "In other words, a book must be scanned by the
>> submitter in order for it to be acceptable by Bookshare."
>>
>> This does not mean that a scanned copy of a physical version of the of a
>> particular title cannot be added to the Bookshare library if that title
>> shows up in another digital library. Some who have commented seem
>> concerned that there might be some restriction on digital books being
>> limited to only one library at a time. There is no such restriction. Think
>> of a physical library as the example. Saint Louis public library can have
>> the same titles as Little Rock but you would get an overdue notice if you
>> tried to return one library's book in the other state!
>>
>> It may be helpful to further clarify in light of the separate running
>> question on .PDF files.
>>
>> Yes, Jim and Betsy indicated in the letter below that Bookshare has need
>> for volunteers to work with a backlog of publisher-supplied .PDF files. We
>> are working with Collection Development to establish the policy,
>> processes, and training materials for this future opportunity.
>>
>> Note that working in the future with .PDF files supplied by the publisher
>> directly to Bookshare will not change the prohibition on volunteers
>> attempting to submit commercially available e-books, digital books
>> received from other providers such as an RFB&D digital book or a Library
>> of Congress (NLS) Web-Braille book, or digital books provided to a student
>> by their school which the school received in digital format from a
>> publisher.
>>
>> Clearer nowr?
>>
>> Scott Rains
>> Benetech Fellow, Bookshare Volunteer Department
>> ________________________________________
>>
>> Sent: Monday, August 09, 2010 11:32 AM
>> To:
>> bks_announce@xxxxxxxxxxxxx
>> Dear Bookshare Volunteers,
>>
>> We wanted to give you some thoughts on the critical importance of
>> volunteers to Bookshare and its mission of getting everybody in the world
>> with a print disability access to the books they need for education,
>> employment and full inclusion in society. Although thereâ??s been a
lot of
>> change in Bookshare, one thing that wonâ??t change is our need for
>> volunteers that share our dedication to that mission.
>>
>> Bookshare is the first library for people with print disabilities built
>> primarily by people with print disabilities (as well as book-lovers of all
>> types!). Our credo has been that if someone thought a book was worth
>> scanning, we thought it was worth sharing. We knew that people with
>> disabilities had few choices for accessible materials, and that scanning
>> was a frustrating and slow process.
>>
>> The volunteers built Bookshare into a potent force for equality: weâ??ve
>> revolutionized a field that was falling far short of meeting the goal of
>> equality when it comes to access to the printed word. And youâ??ve worked
>> with us to revolutionize the quality of our scanned books through
>> meticulous proofreading. Thanks to partnerships with over 60 publishers
>> (especially a handful of huge trade publishers), we have now been able to
>> add thousands of new titles to Bookshare electronically, delighting our
>> users. Scott and Pavi have shared with us, and our management team, some
>> of the negative impacts this has had on the morale of some of our
>> volunteers. This is especially true when a publisher-supplied version of
>> a title displaces a volunteer-supplied version of that same title.
>>
>> We know some people feel like thatâ??s not respectful of their volunteer
>> time, or that somehow their volunteer time was wasted. I hope you realize
>> that it has been the potent force of our volunteers creating Bookshare
>> that has brought so many modern publishers to the table, since we can tell
>> them that we already can scan all of their books, but providing it
>> electronically will save us time and the cost of buying a book, chopping
>> it, scanning it and proofreading it. The two things they want in return
>> from us is to publicize their social responsibility and replace our
>> scanned versions with the version they supply. The replacement issue is
>> pretty much a standard requirement: publishers want to be assured of the
>> quality of their books weâ??re distributing. For the publishers itâ??s
built
>> into the publishing culture, they do believe their original product is
>> superior and that this requirement implements their contractual
>> responsibilities to the authors, even though most readers wil
>
> l c
>>
>> oncur that these are also not perfect. While there are exceptions, the
>> value of having 15-20,000 publisher supplied books over a year to our
>> users is incredibly high.
>>
>> These publisher partnerships are a terrific way to help advance our
>> mission, in terms of quality, quantity and uniquely, reach outside the
>> United States. But, they are not going to replace our need for
>> volunteers. We have a long way to go to deliver equal access to our
>> users, and the market is going to fail to fill these needs for the
>> foreseeable future (even as we applaud the recent accessibility work of
>> Amazon, Apple and Google).
>>
>> Let me give you some ideas of the gaps that still exist:
>>
>> · Older books, specialty books, or simply books that arenâ??t
in the
>> top 5% of sales during the years since 2000. While it makes sense for us
>> to invest the effort of the amazing Robin Seaman, our Publisher Liaison,
>> and our engineering team to support a publisher who can give us 4,000
>> titles at once, there arenâ??t very many more of those big name
publishers,
>> but there are over 25,000 publishers.
>>
>> · Proofing PDF files. The bulk of publishers in the U.S., and
almost
>> all publishers in the developing world, donâ??t have the modern XML
>> capabilities of the major trade publishers. We are getting tons of PDF
>> books from these publishers, which need volunteer effort to convert into
>> accessible form.
>>
>> · The international challenge: new titles, new publishers, new
>> languages and new communities of Bookshare volunteers in other countries
>> who would benefit from mentoring. Americans have Bookshare, but the
>> average person with a print disability has nothing. We have so much more
>> to do globally!
>>
>> · Proofing textbooks. The textbook industry is way behind the
>> technology curve and Carrie is sitting on stacks of hardcopy textbooks
>> sent in by teachers from around the country.
>>
>> · Metadata. Even if we have something, it only helps if the person
>> looking for it finds it. We can use significant volunteer help cleaning
>> up the information about our information.
>>
>> · Quality improvements. Improving quality on older, lower quality
>> books.
>>
>> · Image description. A huge challenge that our field has barely
>> begun to scratch the surface of. Our publisher contracts do allow us to
>> add them to the publisher-supplied books and we recently received a
>> major award over five years from the Department of Ed for the DIAGRAM
>> Center, to research and then develop technology to reduce the cost of
>> doing image descriptions. The centerpiece is developing tools for better
>> and faster volunteer image description. Stay tuned!
>>
>> The list goes on. While the need for volunteer work on major trade books
>> of the last five years is going down as these come in directly from
>> publishers, these other needs are acute.
>>
>> Our responsibility is to get better at communicating with volunteers about
>> our needs, and about whatâ??s going to be happening. Our technology
roadmap
>> has numerous improvements planned around improving visibility on these
>> issues so that you can avoid doing those books that are likely to come in
>> directly in from the publisher. But, there are and will be thousands of
>> opportunities for volunteer tasks that are unlikely to ever be done any
>> other way than through volunteer efforts. We really want to create
>> systems where having volunteer work displaced quickly by publisher
>> supplied content is a rarity.
>>
>> We hope youâ??ll find personally rewarding volunteer opportunities
now, and
>> in the future, with Benetech. For those of you who arenâ??t excited about
>> the changes, we understand. But, please be 100% clear: Bookshare
>> volunteers have been the primary force for revolutionary change in
>> accessibility of books. There are many thousands of students and adults
>> with disabilities that have far greater access to the printed word thanks
>> to your past efforts. But, the revolution is far from finished: weâ??re
>> serving 100,000 people today and there are over 100,000,000 who need
>> Bookshare on the planet. We hope youâ??ll continue to volunteer your time
>> in helping realize the vision we all share of equal access for everyone
>> who needs it!
>>
>> Jim Fruchterman & Betsy Beaumon
>>
>> ************************
>> From: bksvol-discuss-bounce@xxxxxxxxxxxxx
>> [bksvol-discuss-bounce@xxxxxxxxxxxxx] On Behalf Of Candice Attrill
>> [candicat87@xxxxxxxxxxxxxx]
>> Sent: Saturday, August 14, 2010 5:52 PM
>> To: bksvol-discuss@xxxxxxxxxxxxx
>> Subject: [bksvol-discuss] Re: Elegible books for bookshare
>>
>> I cirtainly hope this is not true for the reasons that Kim
>> statedabove. What would be defined as accessible? What's accessible to
>> you or me might not be accessible to every blind person due to
>> disability. For example there are allot more audio books available
>> from NLS than braille books, and even the daisy versions of these
>> books could not be read by a deaf blind person unless they have some
>> remaining hearing and a loop. RFB and D dispight many arguments also
>> does not make the text of a book match up with audio so it could be
>> read on a braille display.
>> Candice
>>
>> On 8/14/10, Kim Friedman <kimfri11@xxxxxxxxxxx> wrote:
>>> I think there's a lot of audio that deaf-blind people find inaccessible,
>>> hence putting in accessible text copies in Bookshare if the only copies
>>> available in NLS is in audio. Regards, Kim Friedman.
>>>
>>> -----Original Message-----
>>> From: bksvol-discuss-bounce@xxxxxxxxxxxxx
>>> [mailto:bksvol-discuss-bounce@xxxxxxxxxxxxx] On Behalf Of Roger Loran
>>> Bailey
>>> Sent: Saturday, August 14, 2010 9:59 AM
>>> To: bksvol-discuss@xxxxxxxxxxxxx
>>> Subject: [bksvol-discuss] Re: Elegible books for bookshare
>>>
>>> That's what I was thinking. It has never been true and I would be
>>> interested
>>> in knowing where that guideline was found. I think something must have
>>> been
>>> misinterpreted about it. In any case, though, let me add that it might
>>> not
>>> be a bad rule to follow. That is, if a book exists in accessible format
>>> elsewhere I think it should be given a lower priority for adding to
>>> Bookshare. Note that I did not say that it should be entirely avoided. It
>>> is
>>> a simple matter that it is already in accessible format somewhere and
>>> there
>>> are other books that are not in accessible format anywhere. It is those
>>> latter books that should be given priority.
>>>
>>>
>>> _ _ _
>>>
>>> "Those who produce should have, but we know that those who produce the
>>> most
>>> - that is, those who work hardest, and at the most difficult and most
>>> menial
>>> tasks, have the least." - Eugene V. Debs
>>>
>>>
>>> The Militant:
>>> http://www.themilitant.com
>>> Pathfinder Press:
>>> http://www.pathfinderpress.com
>>> Granma International:
>>> http://www.granma.cu/ingles/index.html
>>> ----- Original Message -----
>>> From: "EVAN REESE" <mentat3@xxxxxxxxxxx>
>>> To: <bksvol-discuss@xxxxxxxxxxxxx>
>>> Sent: Saturday, August 14, 2010 10:10 AM
>>> Subject: [bksvol-discuss] Re: Elegible books for bookshare
>>>
>>>
>>> MessageThis is certainly not true. To the best of my knowledge, it has
>>> never
>>>
>>> been true.
>>>
>>> Evan
>>>
>>> ----- Original Message -----
>>> From: Andy B.
>>> To: bksvol-discuss@xxxxxxxxxxxxx
>>> Sent: Saturday, August 14, 2010 8:37 AM
>>> Subject: [bksvol-discuss] Elegible books for bookshare
>>>
>>>
>>> From what the guidelines say, the book can't be in any other "book
>>> accessibility" format at another place like RFB&D, NLS/BARD and so on. Is
>>> this still true? If it is, I fear that a lot of bookshare books need to
>>> go
>>> away then.
>>>
>>> To unsubscribe from this list send a blank Email to
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>>>
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>>
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