The Scanners Guild Blog

I’d like to invite you to a special and exciting online round table taking place this evening, May 14. Your thoughts, ideas, and questions will make it better, so I hope you’ll make time to join us. Comments from people of varying backgrounds, abilities, and levels of computer knowledge will make this panel unique and helpful for everyone. I know that both sighted and blind people will learn about each other in a way that strengthens friendships and makes life better for both kinds of people. Here is the invitation from our host, Paul Edwards.

At the end of Tuesday Topics last week when we were recording, those of us present found ourselves exploring the way blind people communicate on the internet, using email programs and blogging. It was suggested that you can actually recognize people who are blind by the way they communicate. This is because we tend not to make much use of the language of visual emotion-creation that has become so much a part of internet talking. We don’t use smiley faces or frownie faces or all the more than five thousand defined visuals that are out there. It was also suggested that many blind people portray themselves and blind people in ways we may not intend.

Sometimes we appear angry and to expect people not to use visual communications with us. Sometimes we appear to want to arouse the pity of those with whom we are communicating. Sometimes we take umbrage over nothing and assume that people are serious when their visual context makes it clear they are not.

How should we deal with this? Is it a big issue or not? Should we bother with the smiley faces and so on? If so, why? And, more important, if so, how?

Brian Collins and Monica Willyard will join us to discuss this fascinating question. With luck many of you will come to put in your two cents worth as well. We will start recording very soon after 9:00 PM Eastern on Tuesday May 13, 2008. Now here is more info about how to get to the Politics Room and what to do once you are in the room.

Using a web browser, go to
http://www.conference321.com/masteradmin/room.asp?id=rs510b693fb11f to enter the Politics Room.

There you must either download a small application if this is your first time there, or go on to enter the room. The next screen has a spot for you to input your real name and a password. Ignore the password. Just enter your name and press enter.

The new room looks a lot different from the old one. Please take some time and explore particularly the help menu and its accessibility submenu.

If you cannot join us tonight, please listen starting next Monday at 8:00 p.m. eastern to hear this program on the mainstream channel of ACBRADIO.

This is going to be fun. I’m looking forward to seeing you this evening.

Welcome to The Scanners Guild Blog. Your time is valuable, and I’m glad you’ve stopped by. Without readers, a blog is just one person’s rants. Your thoughts and ideas are important to me, and I hope you’ll comment on posts that interest you.

My name is Monica Willyard, and I created this blog to talk about an exciting project that turns print books and newspapers into spoken words or Braille for people who are blind or who have a learning disability. It’s a service called Bookshare, and I’m a volunteer there. We’ve got somewhere around 18,000 members who can access over 39,000 books and several hundred local newspapers online. This service is completely legal and is provided for by a United States copyright law that allows a service to make print books readable for people who can’t read books. Many of Bookshare’s members are blind, and there are also people with learning disabilities and some people who can read but cannot physically hold a book due to an injury or cerebral palsy. Bookshare has a group of dedicated volunteers who scan and then proofread the scanned books before Bookshare’s tools turn the book into a Daisy audio file or a Braille file. Blind people use a Braille notetaker that is similar to a PDA or Palm Pilot for reading. The notetaker speaks and shows text in Braille as well.

If you or a family member are disabled, you can find out more about Bookshare by visiting Bookshare’s website. In fact, if you are a student, the Department Of Education has sponsored you with a grant so you can get a free membership. If you’re not a student, the yearly membership fee is low and works out to around $6 per month for the first year and $4 per month for following years. You pay more than that for a cup of coffee or a night at the movies. In exchange, you get access to over 39,000 books and newspapers from around the country. Finally, you can earn a Bookshare membership through working as a volunteer and earning membership credits.

If you love to read and wish you could turn that pleasure into something that can make life better for someone else, please consider becoming a volunteer. We need people from every background and at every level of computer knowledge,so don’t worry if the idea of scanning a book sounds like technology from outer space. We have both blind and sighted volunteers, and you don’t even need to own a scanner to help us in a big way. You’ll meet some friendly and talented people and join a supportive community that sees friendship as part of volunteering.

Oops. There goes my telephone, so I’m signing off for now. At any rate, feel free to poke around the site and explore the blogroll. I’m glad you’re here.