[Nfb-krafters-korner] Rough Bookshare Notes

[Deborah Armstrong]

... these will make more sense after the talk, but I post them now so if 
I forget something you want to know more about you can remind me.


I'll expect lots of questions while I talk.


1.    History Of Bookshare
1990s unofficial, on-the-sly book swapping lists formed
"with the kind permission of the publisher" 1998 amendment copyright law 
caused this to be unnecessary
Fruchterman, CEO arkenstone, open book founded bookshare, end 2001
not all organizations sure legal, Ca community colleges took stance it 
wasn't
organization grows but collection development uneven; sci-fi o'reilly, 
tech books
2009 awarded grant from U.S. dept of education
2.    What is bookshare now?
continues to have scanned books with quality varying
quality used to be an ocr issue, now it's a picture description reading 
order issue
more and more books supplied by publishers
still keeps collection development uneven as some publishers (romance) 
more willing to share
textbook variety  from some publishers great, others not
as ebooks proliferate so do offerings from publisher to bookshare
3.        the decline of page numbers
when volunteers first started, pagination was to be preserved at all costs
with the wide acceptance of ebooks by able-bodied, page numbers are 
nearing extinction
4.    What's on bookshare
Library of books provided by publishers and volunteers
  some popular titles purchased and scanned by in-house staff
Books are divided in to categories and collections
Categories resemble a print bookstore, suspense and mystery, home and 
garden, health, self-help, westerns, animals, science
the category is assigned when volunteer submits a book or the way a 
publisher would categorize it in a bookstore
biography of Ben Franklin might end up in Biographies, or in history or 
both places
Bookshare tries to fix these inconsistencies but has long way to go
originally it was a library built by the community of print-impaired, as 
it evolves towards being more professional it hasn't got the resources 
to always do as good a job as a large city library or Amazon.
5.    Finding Stuff
You can browse through categories, for example, selecting Home and 
Garden and simply reading the synopsis for each book
Or you can try looking at "collections" which is a bookshare attempt to 
call out notable selections
For example all bestsellers are in a collection
All award winners are in collections belonging to those awards, E.G. The 
Man Booker Prize or the Nebula Awards
Some collections are recommended reading or staff picks
Some collections are by publisher, for example, you can browse the 
entire collection of technical books from O'Riley.
Searching is a topic by itself
You can search simply with a generic keyword and author, title, and 
synopsis will be searched
You can search by these individual fields as well
There are two synopsis,  long and short, provided either by the 
publisher or submitting volunteer
Quality of the synopsis is uneven
6.    Getting Access to the site
You can establish a login whether or not you are a member.
With an email address and password, you can download any book in the 
public domain
This is a good way to try it out
Search for books, make lists of books, all can be done without membership

You can try reading in various formats without membershipYou can also 
get a sponsoring organization to give you access to a reading list.
If you belong to a library or school that has a membership with 
bookshare you can create a login or ask them to create one for you.
Once you have the login, your school or library can request books for 
you and put them on reading lists which you can access and from there, 
read the books online

This is all free

Or, you can become a member.
7.    Membership
Gives you full access to the collection (as permitted by your country or 
region)
Membership is $50 a year, or free if you are any kind of student in the U.S.
You self-certify, so you can take a few free online courses and call 
yourself a student
Outside the U.S. there are possibilities for free membership, but you 
should contact support to learn your options which vary by country and 
region.
Some Canadians and South Africans I know have free access; others do not.
You can also volunteer and earn $2 towards membership credit for every 
book you scan or proof
Many volunteers are blind and this is how they afford yearly membership
8.    Book Availability
Not all books are available to all readers depending on publisher 
agreements bookshare has established.
Some Australian publishers won't let Americans view their books
but mostly Americans get the majority of the access and other nations, 
due to their varying copyright laws have less access.
Even without logging in you can see books' distribution rights on their 
detail page
9.    Book formats available:
Everything can be downloaded in Braille, suitable for embossing or 
reading on a Braille display.
Everything also available in Daisy (can explain if needed)
There are a multiplicity of Daisy readers,
Examples of free daisy readers: fs Reader, Amis, Victor Reader from 
Bookshare
Examples of paid readers: Gh Reader, Victor Reader Stream, PlexTalk 
Pocket, Eclipse Reader, EaseReader, Book wizard.
Software vs. hardware readers, advantages and disadvantages of both
Books can also be read online with two web-based readers, one for BVI 
one for LD
Books can be read on Android or iDEVICE.
On iDEVICE three apps: Capti Narrator, VoiceDream Reader and Read2Go.
On Android, GoRead and others
K1000 and Open Book can also open bookshare books.
K1000 and Victor Reader Stream can search and download from Bookshare
10.    Survey of Craft Books
Huge collection
Knitting, crochet, beadwork, felting, macrame, oragami, soap and candle 
making, more even
Thousands of cookbooks
Most popular bestselling publishers current offerings well-represented
Downside is many craft books are quite visual
I will post recommendations to the list for needle knitting, my craft
Best solution is to download and try a book out
The "teach yourself visually" series is surprisingly well-written.
The "for dummies" series usually contains good, clear descriptions
Older "classic" craft books are often more text-based because color 
photos used to be more expensive to print
Look for publisher-quality craft and cookbooks rather than ones scanned 
by volunteers,
though some volunteers do add extensive picture descriptions.

--Debee