[bksvol-discuss] Update to Wiki Page on Books In A Series
- From: Scott Rains <scottr@xxxxxxxxxxxx>
- To: "bksvol-discuss@xxxxxxxxxxxxx" <bksvol-discuss@xxxxxxxxxxxxx>
- Date: Mon, 16 Aug 2010 11:32:47 -0700
Volunteers,
A link to Jamie's helpful database of publishers that are not currently
submitting digital books to Bookshare has been added to the page on the Series
Captains Project.
While there is no foolproof way to predict when a new publisher may sign with
us or an existing publisher may do something that impacts a series we have
created tools such as these to adapt to the current rapid change and have
aligned volunteer instructions to consistently refer to these latest tools:
https://wiki.benetech.org/display/BSO/Series+Captains+List
Scott Rains
Benetech Fellow, Bookshare Volunteer Department
________________________________________
From: bksvol-discuss-bounce@xxxxxxxxxxxxx [bksvol-discuss-bounce@xxxxxxxxxxxxx]
On Behalf Of Mike [mlsestak@xxxxxxxxxxxxx]
Sent: Monday, August 16, 2010 8:54 AM
To: bksvol-discuss@xxxxxxxxxxxxx
Subject: [bksvol-discuss] Re: PDF Files
I hadn't read Jim Fruchterman's letter (or much of any email since I've
been on vacation for the last week). It sounds like the major
publishers are unlikely to go back before 2000 in what they supply.
That sounds great as there are certainly many books 10 to 20 years old
that were and are still popular.
Misha
On 8/16/2010 8:25 AM, Cindy Ray wrote:
> I, personally, had not read the article though I received it. Thanks.
>
> Cindy Lou
>
> On Aug 16, 2010, at 9:01 AM, Scott Rains wrote:
>
>
>> Hi Cindy,
>>
>> Email is a tough medium to communicate in effectively. Thanks for sticking
>> it out!
>>
>> It sounds like the person who posed the question about PDF read the letter
>> from Jim Fruchterman and Betsy Beaumon to all volunteers published here. I
>> have reprinted below in case this is what you missed.
>>
>> You will notice that they do say that we will need volunteers in the future
>> to work on PDF files. Details of how that will be done have not been
>> determined yet.
>>
>> 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 there’s been a lot of change in Bookshare,
>> one thing that won’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: we’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 you’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 that’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
>> we’re distributing. For the publishers it’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 aren’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 aren’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, don’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 what’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 you’ll find personally rewarding volunteer opportunities now, and in
>> the future, with Benetech. For those of you who aren’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: we’re serving 100,000
>> people today and there are over 100,000,000 who need Bookshare on the
>> planet. We hope you’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 Cindy Ray
>> [cindyray@xxxxxxxxx]
>> Sent: Saturday, August 14, 2010 6:22 PM
>> To: bksvol-discuss@xxxxxxxxxxxxx
>> Subject: [bksvol-discuss] Re: PDF Files
>>
>> Oh, Arghhhh! There was apparently an article which I never read that
>> indicated that some publishers (small ones) would submit their books in pdf
>> format and that they would need to be proofread. The person who asked the
>> question had read this article. It is apparently an article on why
>> volunteers are still an integral part of Bookshare. So this person was
>> wondering how one would proofread such a file. I don't guess I completely
>> understood the question. Sorry to cause all this trouble, for I know pretty
>> much the rules governing volunteering at Bookshare; I just haven't had the
>> time to do it much lately.
>> Thanks for all your help folks. *smile*
>>
>> Cindy Lou
>>
>> On Aug 14, 2010, at 8:10 PM, Monica Willyard wrote:
>>
>>
>>> Cindy, we don't accept pdf files or files directly from a publisher.
>>> All books we submit are supposed to have paragraphs and page breaks.
>>> If a publisher wants to donate a book, it needs to go through
>>> Bookshare itself. We aren't supposed to submit e-books that we buy
>>> somewhere unless we get prior permission from Bookshare staff. From
>>> what I understand from Bookshare staff, e-books we buy somewhere
>>> don't have the same legal standing as print books.
>>>
>>> --
>>> Monica Willyard
>>> Visit my GoodReads book shelf at http://www.goodreads.com/plumlipstick
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>>>
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