[bksvol-discuss] Re: Bookshare & PQ submission
- From: Cindy <popularplace@xxxxxxxxx>
- To: bksvol-discuss@xxxxxxxxxxxxx
- Date: Tue, 12 Aug 2008 16:18:58 -0700 (PDT)
Thanks for the explanation, Jim.
I won't argue with anything you've said, and it's great that books can be
provided to people outside the U.S. I'd just like to make it clear that no one
objects to improved quality books, PQ or not, replacing less-than-perfect
books; it's just that apparently some PQ books aren't as perfect as some
volunteer books, though apparently those will be looked into and corrected,
according to Jake's post. And it would be nice if the PQ books could exist
side-by-side with volunteer books that are perfect, although I guess it's not
safe to rely upon the volunteer's rating and of course it's impossible for
staff to read every book. The explanation of why the publishers' want their
copies to be in bookshare by themselves, as you've explained it, makes sense.
Cindy
> The issue of "throwing away" volunteer work to
> give the reader a better
> quality book seems like an odd issue. Improved quality
> content has been
> the number one issue of Bookshare readers when we survey
> them. It's
> certainly the number one issue of ex-Bookshare.org users,
> and I take our
> failure to serve them seriously. Our volunteers have
> always embraced
> making better scans of books. Why does this change when
> it's the
> publisher volunteering a better version of the book? We
> wouldn't keep
> the fair version of a scanned book around when it was
> replaced with an
> excellent scan: we've been throwing them away with our
> dedication to the
> readers. Plus, the publisher quality books are
> increasingly coming to
> us with improved navigation options.
>
> Let's be honest: volunteers will continue to be the
> primary source of
> books for a long time: years and years. 95+% of the books
> in
> Bookshare.org is there because someone in our volunteer
> community
> decided it was worth having. If someone complains that a
> book isn't of
> the quality it says it is, we'll replace it with a
> better one. That's
> we've decided that if one person in our community
> thought it was
> important to have, we will invest the money to buy the
> books and the
> energy to replicate it.
>
> We're here fighting for equality for readers with
> disabilities. The
> "powers that be" are pretty clear about mission
> and our entire team
> spends a lot of time trying to figure out the best ways to
> accomplish
> that mission. My suggestion is that when there are
> changes (and there
> are going to be a lot of really great changes) to
> Bookshare.org, that we
> can assume that everybody on the Bookshare.org team, users,
> volunteers
> and staff, are all trying to accomplish the grand goal: the
> highest
> quality books at the same time as non-disabled people have
> them, for the
> same of lower price!
>
> Jim Fruchterman
> 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.
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.
Other related posts:
