Bookshare

This time I'd like to talk about a very cool online resource for anyone who loves to read, and has a disability that interferes with reading regular print material. Bookshare is a great website that offers a few different types of electronic books for people with disabilities.

Here's how it works. When someone signs up for a membership, they must provide written proof that they are disabled. This could be anything from Blindness, to Dyslexia, to another learning disability. A doctor's note or note from a Disability Services office should work fine. There then is a one time $25 activation fee, and a yearly $50 membership fee. This is still not bad though, and as I'll talk about later, there are ways to save money.

Once someone is varified to have a disability, and finished registration, the entire Bookshare library is available. There are a few different formats of books to choose from. Daisy is a fairly new electronic book format that provides easier and quicker navigation in a book, and is the first type available. Electronic Braille books are also an option. These books can be read in some assistive technology programs like Kurzweil, printed to a Braille printer, or translated to text. Finally some books are available in plain text format. Their library is huge, and growing daily.

The books are mostly scanned by Bookshare members. Members can sign up to be volunteers and scan or varify books. Before books are available to the public, members varify each one. Varifying is simply checking for any glaring errors, and fixing any other problems they find from the original scan. The good news is scanning and varifying books earns members credit toward their next year's membership, and it makes more books available to everyone else.

I've been a member of Bookshare now for over 2 years, and love it. $50 isn't much to pay for the entire library of electronic books. Buying books on CD or tape costs a lot of money.

If this sounds interesting, visit the Bookshare website here.

Committee Notes: March 31 2006

Our awesome committee met at the CTEP office last Friday.
It was a productive meeting, as usual. Gina joined us for most of our visit and helped us with our media project planning. Ken was there too, for media planning and CTCnet fundraising. At 2:00, the Media Committee arrived and we discussed possible collaboration with our video projects.

Video Project
We started by talking about our 'Factsheet PSA', which has evolved into a 1 to 3 minute piece about how our corps has helped to overcome/address barriers to access at our sites; our success includes technology, physical and programming adjustments/enhancements. (We will also feature things our sites were already doing/had in place before CTEP arrived on the scene).

Our audience for this video is our Corps, and other CTCs. It will also be part of our CTCnet conference presentation.

First we decided to focus on the sites our committee members work at. Next, we brainstormed what imagery (video shots) we could feature according to site. Here's our list:

Project for Pride in Living (PPL):

• Star Tribune touch screen kiosk
  
• easy to use web site for PPL users
• (need to check my notes)

Intermedia Arts:

• The ramp down to the performance theatre, media lab and classroom
• Interview Marlina about "Body Image" a performance she curated where artists with disabilties performed; and attention to accomodating people with disabitlies was part of her outreacch strategy

Waite House:

• bilingual staff
• translated programming materials
• (need to check my notes)
  

Lexington Library

• assistive tech station
• adjustable computer table
• signage for tech station

Centro

• murals inside (welcoming, culturally appropriate atmosphere)
• WebAdapt
• programming offered in Spanish

Our first shooting will be on April 14th. The morning we'll do Intermedia Arts, the afternoon PPL.

IMPORTANT!!
We all need to ask our supervisors how to obtain a location release so we can safely feature these sites in our video. Also, anyone we interview needs to sign a media release (for their image and voice) before we shoot them. Intermedia Arts has forms we should be able to adapt if anyone needs a release template.

I (Linda) will ask if we can check out Catherine's lighting kit, video camera, tripod and microphone for the 14th. We will ask CTEP if they can purchase an external microphone for Corps use--the Media Committee has informed us there is no such mic and it sure would be handy.

Fundraising and CTCnet
Next topic - how do we all get the money to go to the CTCnet conference in July? Our proposal is fabulous, thanks to Lindsey. There is a very good chance it will be accepted, so we need to figure out some fundraising strategies. We did tackle a difficult task, which was deciding who, if we only raise enough money for one or two of us, is going to go. We made a list (very civilly I would say -- see? we do have an awesome committee). Here's the list:

1. Lindsey
2. Linda
3. Lauree/Jesse

Lauree may be funded through her site and -- great news -- my partner is donating some of his frequent flyer miles towards my trip, so I guess my plane ticket is taken care of.


Media Committee
Once the Media Committee joined us the conversation was elevated to bellbottoms, '80s pant cuffs, jumpsuits, Prince, gremlins (or whatever that thing on Rox's water bottle is -- I can't figure it out!). I could barely keep up, the treatises and theories were so HEAVY.

We did figure out that both our committees are in the beginning stages of a video project, and we are both going to shoot CTEP sites/CTEP members working at their sites. HMMM... it did seem like a revelation at the time, but I guess it kind of sounds obvious as I write this down. The important thing is we will share footage when appropriate. And, this committee needs to create a list of guiding questions for the Media Committee to work from as they gather material on their sojourn into ' a day in the life of a CTEP member.'

Please email any interview questions you think are appropriate for the Media Committee to Lindsey by this Wed, April 5th. She will compose a list and forward it to the head of the Media committee.

Next Meeting
We do NOT have a meeting April 7th. Continue to post to our blog and think of ideas you want to share about our media project with the rest of the committee; ideas for scripting, approach, storyboarding, music, etc. Check out www.current.tv, it's a great resource. Also, email Roxanne for feedback -- she has great ideas and is very willing to help.

Next Meeting: April 14th - our first video shoot. We'll meet at Intermedia Arts at 9:00 AM. This will be an all day meeting. Bring a location release for your site, please.

I know I have more in my notes, but they are at work, so I will make adjustments to these notes tomorrow.