This may be something interesting for some you know and maybe a list you could post it to. It isn't something you should just read and forget. Please pass it on, it could benefit you too. Karyl ----- Original Message ----- From: "Alison Lingane" <[log in to unmask]> To: <[log in to unmask]> Sent: Thursday, October 04, 2001 4:01 PM Subject: Submit your Books Now! Bookshare.org - Books without Barriers e-Newsletter Volume 1, Issue 2 Submit your Books Now! Welcome to the second Bookshare.org e-Newsletter. Since our last issue, we have made significant progress towards our official launch, including: 1. You can now submit books over the Internet. 2. The volunteer website is now available so you can help prepare books for publication on Bookshare.org. As we described in our inaugural issue, Bookshare.org is a new online community that enables people in the United States with visual or other print disabilities to legally share scanned books. Bookshare.org takes advantage of a special exemption in the U.S. copyright law that permits the reproduction of publications into specialized formats for the disabled. Our website has more details: www.bookshare.org. 1. SUBMIT YOUR BOOK SCANS TODAY If you have books you have already scanned, don't wait -- share them with Bookshare.org now! The collection will grow as fast as our community submits books. Whether you've got one book or a thousand in your library, you can help build, and then enjoy the Bookshare.org collection. Simply email [log in to unmask] to find out how to get started submitting books. For your convenience, we have again included detailed information about book scans below. We also maintain a list of recent best-sellers that aren't already in the collection. Send an email to [log in to unmask] to request book suggestions from this list. 2. VOLUNTEER OVER THE INTERNET TO PREPARE BOOKS FOR PUBLICATION The community of volunteers helping to build the collection is already growing, and volunteers include those with and without visual or print disabilities, computing professionals and Internet novices. Anyone with an Internet connection and an interest in making books accessible can get involved! The volunteer website is now ready for use. Let's get these books ready! Volunteers help build the collection by publishing books to the Bookshare.org system, using a simple process that can be performed over the Internet. Email [log in to unmask], and we can get you started. While we have rigorously tested the website, as an initial volunteer you may still encounter some undetected bugs. Your involvement, feedback and patience at this stage is invaluable. You can help attain the goals of offering 20,000 books at launch and presenting a high-quality, informative, easy-to-use website. With your help, people in the United States with print disabilities will have dramatically increased access to books. ------------------------------------------- BOOKSHARE.ORG UPDATE * As of today, 9,500 books have been submitted, and we need your help to get all of them - and the additional books being submitted every day - prepared for easy access. * Many of these books came from people who have submitted their large personal collections. If you have a large quantity of books, email us at [log in to unmask] for information about how to submit them. Share all that scanning effort with this community. * The website work is about 90% done. By the end of this month we will start beta testing the entire site functionality, a process that will last about 6 weeks. * Bookshare.org also maintains an interactive discussion mailing list. The list, Bookshare.org-discuss, is the place to make suggestions for the community, discuss feedback, or talk about topics involved in access to print such as scanning and reading technology. You can subscribe to the list by sending a blank email to [log in to unmask] * On October 19th, Jim Fruchterman will be speaking about Bookshare.org at the Closing the Gap conference in Minneapolis - currently scheduled for 3:30 pm on Friday. If you are attending, we'd love to meet you! * Bookshare.org has been named a finalist for the Tech Museum of Innovation Awards: Technology Benefiting Humanity. Bookshare.org is one of five finalists for their Equality Award. You can read more about it at: http://www.thetech.org/exhibits_events/techawards/press_resources.html. * Be sure to tell your friends. The more people who know about Bookshare.org and take an active role in supporting its development, the more extensive the collection will be. Feel free to forward this email to other people you know who could benefit from being a part of the Bookshare.org community. We continue look forward to your involvement in this online community, and as always, welcome your ideas and suggestions. Sincerely, The Bookshare.org Team [log in to unmask] www.bookshare.org ------------------------------------------- DETAILED INFORMATION ABOUT BOOK SCANS If you have digital copies of books that you have scanned in for your own use, you can now submit them to Bookshare.org. Here are some guidelines about what materials we can and cannot accept. Below, you'll find a set of preferences we've put together for scanned materials if you are scanning new books to submit to Bookshare.org. Following these preferences will help ensure the highest quality books that have useful markings such as page numbers and chapter indications. Materials we are accepting: - Complete scans of books. - Digital books in almost any format. - Books either copyrighted or in the public domain. - Materials that do not violate any of the restrictions listed below. Materials we cannot accept: - Any copyrighted material that does not contain the original copyright notice (including copyright owner(s) and date). - Copyrighted dramatic works (such as plays). - Exams, teachers' editions of textbooks or sample course materials. - Partial book scans, such as individual chapters. - Any materials that are proprietary, or were obtained in breach of any contract, or illegally. Preferences: Scanner settings 1. Keep Exact View / Image File - If your scanner allows you to do so, keep the image file of the scanned pages along with the text translation. If you are using a Kurzweil 1000 version 6 or Kurzweil 3000, the image file is saved with the .kes file format. If you are using OPENBook or WYNN, the image files will be included if you have "Keep Exact View" enabled. Why do we ask for this? Over time, as the quality of Optical Character Recognition technology improves, we hope to be able to go back to the original image files that are submitted to provide an even higher quality book. However, the size of books scanned with exact view on is quite large, and people with limited disk space or slow connections may find this impractical. We want your book with or without the images! - If your system does not allow you to keep the image file of the scanned pages along with the text translation, please save the scan in RTF. Bookshare.org can accept digital books in many different formats. If you've got digital books in other formats, you can definitely still submit them to the collection, and we welcome your submissions! 2. Two page scanning - If you choose to scan two pages of a book at a time, select "two page scanning" so that the resulting file will differentiate between the two pages. 3. Keep blank pages - Do not discard blank pages if your scanning software has such a setting. Having all of the pages, including the blank ones, will help provide page numbers that correspond to those in the original book. Scanning 1. Copyright notice - Make sure to include the scan of the copyright notice. This is found on the back side of the title page. Bookshare.org cannot legally add books to its collection that do not contain the original copyright owner(s) and date. 2. Entire book - Scan the book cover, book jacket (if it has one), and all of the pages before and after the content. - Make sure to scan the book in its entirety; no single chapters will be accepted. 3. Careful layout - Make sure that the book is square on the scanner when you scan. Saving the Scan Following these guidelines will save the most amount of information about the book, such as page numbers, chapters, emphasized text, etc. 1. Optical Character Recognition - Run Optical Character Recognition (OCR) on your scanned material before submitting it. This will help increase the quality of the submission. 2. File format - If you are using a commercial OCR package, save the scan in the RTF format. - If you are using OpenBook, WYNN, or the Kurzweil 1000 version 6 or Kurzweil 3000, save the scan in the default format for the program. For example, for OpenBook the default results in a file with the extension .ark. For the Kurzweil products, the default results in a file with the extension .kes. ------------------------------------------- ABOUT BOOKSHARE.ORG Books without Barriers Bookshare.org is a new online community that enables people in the United States with visual or other print disabilities to legally share scanned books. Bookshare.org will launch in late 2001. Where do the digital books come from? The Bookshare.org collection is built and shaped primarily by its community of members and supporters. By scanning a book to submit to the collection, a Bookshare.org member can provide all other members access to that book. Who can access the books? Copyrighted digital books will be available only to U.S. citizens or residents who have a disability that affects print reading. Both individuals and organizational memberships will be available. Qualified organizations are those that provide accessible material to individuals with print disabilities. Why is Bookshare.org legal? In general, it would be illegal to share or distribute copyrighted books. However, Bookshare.org takes advantage of a special exemption in U.S. copyright law that permits the reproduction of publications into specialized formats for the disabled. This project is possible under the law in the United States, as long as the copyrighted digital books are only available to people in the U.S. with bona fide disabilities and the nonprofits and schools that serve them. For more information, please visit our website at http://www.bookshare.org/about/legal. Who is providing Bookshare.org? Bookshare.org is a project of the Benetech Initiative, a nonprofit organization. The Benetech team originally developed the Arkenstone reading systems, and is now using the power of technology to introduce new projects such as Bookshare.org - www.benetech.org. Copyright © 2001 Benetech