Dorene,

I should have been more precise with my question.  Here are the details:

I read Candace M. Robb's wonderful Owen Archer mysteries on cassettes
from the national Library Service.  I looked today to see if a
particular book, The Lady Chapel, had made it to NLS Bard's digital
library yet.  The answer is no.. only one of the series is there at this
point.  I could read it again on cassette and may have to, but I am
pretty burnt with the broken tapes etc.

I actually had checked the book on Amazon to see if it was available for
the Kindle 3.  It is not.  I have been wallowing in all the books not on
NLS in any format that I can read on my Kindle 3... it's been a gas, so
many I never thought I would be able to read without scanning a book...
which is time consuming and the initial outlay expensive... otherwise.

You kind of bring up the central issue of this whole matter of NLS and
book choices.  They have a limited budget, true, but there is something
to be said for quantity over quality.  Getting books into text so they
can be read on something like a Kindle or a Stream might be the way to
get more books into readers' hands might be the way to go.

I've delved into this general topic for sometime, principally on my
That's All She Read blog about books and accessibility.  I recognize and
admire the accomplishment of NLS in do ing what they do so well.  I am
far more inclined however to try to be an active consumer than a
recipient of services for the blind.. I just feel that inevitably one
has more ppower when the almighty dollar is concerned.  I am seeing this
very much the case in books that can be read on readers like the Kindle.
  I happen to be a founding member of the Independent Author's Guild so
am concerned that we are not not just stuck with what marketing
departments and other gatekeepers tell us what we can read.

Here is what I was told by the NLS about their book choice process...
this is beyond bestsellers and favorite authors.  They take suggestions
from the state libraries for about a year.  Then they think long and
hard about what books to have narrated.  Then the months it takes to
produce the books goes by.

In the meantime, my colleagues and friends have all long ago read Sharon
Kay Penman's latest and are waiting for her next...  and I am out of luck.

So ofter when I bring up this disparity, this separate and unequal, I
get unpleasant reactions from other blind people, boiling down to how I
don't understand, and don't I know how hard they work and how tight
resources are, and in essence shut up and be grateful.  To me that
sounds like second class citizenship.

So I have taken the abuse for being such a fan of Kindle 3 because as
both a reader and author I want books as soon as I can after they come
out, and not just the ones with garish covers at the checkout stand.  I
do a site called medieval-novels.com www.medieval-novels.com with over
1200 books on it.. a fraction of which are available "for the blind" but
a growing number which are making their way to Kindle.

So how's that?  Lots to ponder..  I hope this group is less kneejerk
about the whole issue of services for as opposed to consumer activism.

I, by the way, will have a download book on BARD sometime this year.. a
medieval novel of course, called "An Involuntary King".  It took some
heavy duty education and convincing of my local library for the blind to
get it recorded.. and it took a couple years too.

With respect,

Nan Hawthorne
medieval-novels.com
Over 1200 Novels set in the Middle Ages and Renaissance!
www.medieval-novels.com

Add your favorites now!

, books I thought I  might never have the chance to read, but alas, Owen
Archer is not one of them.

You


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