[bksvol-discuss] Dan Beaver's Volunteer Bio
- From: Scott Rains <scottr@xxxxxxxxxxxx>
- To: "bksvol-discuss@xxxxxxxxxxxxx" <bksvol-discuss@xxxxxxxxxxxxx>
- Date: Fri, 16 Jul 2010 15:02:22 -0700
Team,
What a remarkable group this is! The latest bio I have recieved is from Dan
Beaver below.
Scott Rains
Benetech Fellow, Bookshare Volunteer Department
________________________________________
I have been a volunteer for Bookshare for several years. I first purchased a
membership because of needing some of the technical books that Bookshare
offered. After approximately a year I decided to give back to the community by
helping to add more books to the collection.
I purchased a very plain and normal Epson flatbed scanner for the work. It and
the Fine Reader software I purchased have served me very well in doing the
scanning.
I am blind and have been so since the age of eight years. I use Jaws and NVDA
as my screen readers. I do my Bookshare work in MS Office for the most part.
I feel very fortunate to have been the first blind individual to have worked my
way through the BS in computer Science degree program at Utah State University.
That struggle prepared me very well for facing challenges through out my
career. I graduated and gained employment with IBM and was an IBMer for 30
years. My years at IBM helped me learn and develop skills that have served me
well in the scanning and validating effort. Being detail oriented is important
in this endeavor.
Over the years I have validated many books and have submitted a large number of
books which I scanned. My wife has scanned books and asked me to submit them.
She prefers to work behind the scenes.
One of the largest group of books we submitted that are now in the collection
are the Boy Scout Merit badge booklets that teach the skills necessary for
achieving the rank of Eagle in the scouting program. this was done in order to
support a young man we are very close to in his efforts to earn his Eagle. It
was fun working along side other volunteers in our community who helped with
this project. It was also fun helping those volunteers to proof read the
scanned booklets and to do the cleanup.
When the project was complete we had spent 514 hours and 22 minutes scanning,
cleaning and submitting those books to Bookshare. My wife put in over 200
hours herself on the project.
Unfortunately I lost my job and have had to focus intently on finding a new
job. This has made it nearly impossible for me to spend time scanning and
proofreading over the past 15 months. I hope very soon to jump back into the
game and complete my personal project of submitting the rest of the "Work and
the Glory" series. That in itself will take me several months because the
books are very large. I also am planning to do the "Kingdom and the Crown"
series.
Some other books we have submitted include murder mysteries by Anne Perry.
those were very challenging with all the Victorian era English dialect
involved.
We also submitted several books by Steven R. Lawhead. Three of those were his
version of the Robin Hood story. Very different than your generally accepted
story of Robin Hood.
I agree with the comments of at least one other volunteer. they said that
validating or else scanning and doing the initial cleanup of a book helps to
learn more from that book than at any other time. Indeed, I have learned more
from the books I have validated and submitted and have grown more threw that
process.
Thanks Bookshare for making this opportunity available to all of us out here.
A precious thing is more valuable when it is held by its makers.
Dan Beaver
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