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Sometimes the publishers want to change formats or combine two or three books into one and thus fix all the problems of the other editions and books in one place and not have to bother correcting the other editions. That may save them time but cost their readers who can no longer rely on previous editions being corrected and supposedly must buy the new edition.
This may ignore such things as larger [physically] books may be harder to hold for some people even if they are not physically limited. They are also awkward to deal with when a person only needs to carry the smaller edition or single volume.
I am glad to learn that Bookshare will not necessarily replace editions already in the collection with ones that do not just correct "mistakes". Before eliminating extant copies, Bookshare could contact people who have read and/or scanned and validated the those copies to find out if there is a reason for keeping them rather than including them and the new ones.
Amy
omsm
--
It if be now, 'tis not to come,
If it be not to come, it will be now,
If it be now now, Yet it will come.
The readiness is all.
Wm. Shakespeare
-------------- Original message from Cindy <popularplace@xxxxxxxxx>: --------------
> 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.
>
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