Bookshare Volunteers Are the Best!

When Bookshare was first created, we conceived of the concept of a digital library built by the people who use the library, instead of solely by librarians deciding what people with print disabilities should read. Using a provision of U.S. copyright law, our volunteers scanned the books they wanted to read and then were able to upload them to Bookshare so that others could enjoy these books as well.

Many of our books come straight from socially minded publishers at this point, but our volunteers still play a crucial role, and Bookshare would not be what it is today without them. This email from one of our volunteers illustrates just one of the ways volunteers continue to contribute to the collection (now well over 80,000 titles!)

With the addition of the book "Bright Wampum" to the collection today (September 7th), Bookshare is one of the few (if not the only) libraries in the world to have copies of all of Dorothy Lyons' novels for teens. These novels were mostly published in only one edition during the late 1950s and early 1960s, and are highly collectible. Some of this author's titles are exceedingly rare, with copies bringing hundreds of dollars when they can even be found in the book collectors' marketplace.

I want to thank all the volunteers who helped make possible my hopes of getting all of Dorothy Lyons books into the collection, especially Shelley, Mayrie, Mike (Misha) and Robert for their contributions in finding, scanning or proofreading one or more of these books. It wasn't easy! None of the Dorothy Lyons books are in print. The titles had to be hunted out across the country by Bookshare volunteers from their libraries, through used book sites and in eBay auctions. It took about a year to get them all, but we did it! smile.

Bookshare Volunteers are the best!

Judy s.

I just want to add my thanks to all of our Bookshare volunteers, and to agree with Judy that Bookshare Volunteers are, most definitely, the best!