[Dtb-talk] If you are a student, BookShare is now free

Wed Oct 3 14:57:45 CDT 2007

What you ask is partially true.  The majority of bookshare.org books come from volunteer scanners.  they are then proofed by other volunteers, but some errors generally remain.

However some bookshare.org books do come directly from publishers like the O'Reilly technical books.  They don't have errors.

The other problem with bookshare.org books is that they have little markup information in them, which is normally used to produce good navigation in DAISY books.  They are poor examples of DAISY books, at best.

It is presumed that the grant, in part, will be used to obtain the quality of their daisy books, and to get books directly from publishers, or improve the quality of their input in other ways.

Dave

At 08:30 AM 10/2/2007, you wrote:
>Good morning all, 
>
>Is it my misunderstanding or is it correct that the books available from
>Bookshare are not proof read. If this is the case, should these books be
>used for educational purposes? If this is not correct, please provide me
>with the correct information. 
>
>Valerie
>
>
>
>-----Original Message-----
>From: dtb-talk-bounces at nfbnet.org [mailto:dtb-talk-bounces at nfbnet.org] On
>Behalf Of Pratik Patel
>Sent: Monday, October 01, 2007 7:45 PM
>To: 'Discussion of Digital Talking Books'
>Subject: Re: [Dtb-talk] If you are a student, BookShare is now free
>
>The figure of 32 million is in question and may be lower.  It's a
>possibility that it was a typo.  Inquiries are pending.
>-----Original Message-----
>From: dtb-talk-bounces at nfbnet.org [mailto:dtb-talk-bounces at nfbnet.org] On
>Behalf Of Aaron Cannon
>Sent: Monday, October 01, 2007 5:25 PM
>To: NFB Talk Mailing List
>Cc: National Association of Blind Students mailing list; Discussion of
>Digital Talking Books
>Subject: [Dtb-talk] If you are a student, BookShare is now free
>
>-----BEGIN PGP SIGNED MESSAGE-----
>Hash: RIPEMD160
>
>This was just posted to the bookshare.org site:
>
>We're happy to share incredible news, which will transform Bookshare.org. On
>Friday, the Office of Special Education Programs of the U.S. federal
>Department of Education made a major five-year award of $32 million to
>Bookshare.org. This will further the objectives of the Individuals with
>Disabilities Education Act (IDEA), by supplying high quality textbooks and
>educational materials to students with special needs.
>
>This funding is to fully support all schools and students with qualifying
>print disabilities in the United States, K-12 and post-secondary, with
>access to the entire Bookshare.org collection of accessible electronic books
>and to software for reading those books. As of October 1, 2007, we will
>cease charging these schools and students anything to join Bookshare.org. We
>also expect to add over 100,000 new educational titles in high quality DAISY
>and Braille formats over the next five years, getting students the terrific
>quality textbooks they need for academic success!
>
>
>And, from an email:
>
>Forwarded from Jim Fruchterman:
>
>I'm happy to share incredible news, which will transform Bookshare.org. On
>Friday, the Office of Special Education Programs of the U.S. federal
>Department of Education made a major five-year award of $32 million to
>Bookshare.org.
>
>This funding is to fully support all schools and students with qualifying
>print disabilities in the United States, K-12 and post-secondary, with
>access to the entire Bookshare.org collection of accessible electronic books
>and to software for reading those books.  As of October 1, 2007, we will
>cease charging these schools and students anything to join Bookshare.org as
>members.
>
>In this initial news flash, I can't begin to share with you all of our plans
>for Bookshare.org now with this funding.  But, we are planning on adding
>more than 100,000 new educational books and materials to our existing
>collection of over 34,000 titles.  We are going to reach out to every
>student, every family with a disabled student, and every school in the U.S.
>to offer them the chance to join the Bookshare.org community and transform
>the practice of making books accessible.  We are going to coordinate with
>schools and publishers to deliver the best quality content possible and
>lower their costs in meeting
>our shared obligations to serve every student with a disability in the
>nation.  We expect to provide millions of books to students through this new
>program over the next five years, at a tenth or less of the historical cost
>of providing these services.
>
>And, we expect our improvements to serve all of these students will make
>Bookshare.org better for all of our Bookshare.org users. Bookshare.org's
>track record of being highly responsive to our members will be enhanced with
>significant funding to implement major improvements to our content and
>services.
>
>Our volunteer community is an essential part of what made this grant
>possible, and you are a crucial part to making this a success in the future.
>Your
>commitment to our shared vision of better access to information is core to
>where we are heading.
>
>We want to make equal access to educational materials for disabled students
>a reality!
>
>Jim
>
>Jim Fruchterman
>
>President and CEO
>
>
>
>- --
>Skype: cannona
>MSN/Windows Messenger: cannona at hotmail.com (don't send email to the hotmail
>address.)
>
>-----BEGIN PGP SIGNATURE-----
>Version: GnuPG v1.4.6 (MingW32) - GPGrelay v0.959
>Comment: Key available from all major key servers.
>
>iD8DBQFHAWXEI7J99hVZuJcRA1URAKDDswowqIpxl3eLxGhe5VR0cxIxYACgzO4T
>dMDPpB+zHrEw2V8wFUQRrzs=
>=ai1c
>-----END PGP SIGNATURE-----
>_______________________________________________
>Dtb-talk mailing list
>Dtb-talk at nfbnet.org
>http://www.nfbnet.org/mailman/listinfo/dtb-talk
>
>_______________________________________________
>Dtb-talk mailing list
>Dtb-talk at nfbnet.org
>http://www.nfbnet.org/mailman/listinfo/dtb-talk
>
>
>
>_______________________________________________
>Dtb-talk mailing list
>Dtb-talk at nfbnet.org
>http://www.nfbnet.org/mailman/listinfo/dtb-talk
>
>
>__________ NOD32 2566 (20071002) Information __________
>
>This message was checked by NOD32 antivirus system.
>http://www.eset.com