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

Thu Oct 4 13:43:11 CDT 2007

	Another source of books for Bookshare is submissions from
disability service offices in higher education.  Many such offices,
including mine, convert hundreds of textbooks to e-text each year.  A
few turn the e-text over to Bookshare.  More will be doing the same.
The quality of these books certainly leaves a lot to be desired.  I can
tell you, though, that e-text from publishers is often of a much poorer
quality than the disability service e-text.  Hard to believe, I know.
But it's true.  I think it's great to assert readability and to insist
on quality, but it takes a fair bit of money to deliver.  Let's hope the
money Bookshare is getting will improve the reading experience for its
users.

Jim Marks
Director of Disability Services
University of Montana
jim.marks at umontana.edu
http://www.umt.edu/dss/

-----Original Message-----
From: dtb-talk-bounces at nfbnet.org [mailto:dtb-talk-bounces at nfbnet.org]
On Behalf Of David Andrews
Sent: Wednesday, October 03, 2007 1:58 PM
To: Discussion of Digital Talking Books
Subject: Re: [Dtb-talk] If you are a student, BookShare is now free

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

_______________________________________________
Dtb-talk mailing list
Dtb-talk at nfbnet.org
http://www.nfbnet.org/mailman/listinfo/dtb-talk