Crowdsourcing Recordings
Me, if I had to support only one cause, it would be literacy. One of my favorite organizations is Reading for the Blind and Dylexic. You can sign up to volunteer to read a textbook onto a recording, which is then made available to all members. For those of us without a teaching certificate, it's probably the quickest and easiest way of opening up the avenues of learning to other people in this world.
The textbooks are copyrighted material, so the organization is not, understandably, just handing out these memberships to anyone who asks. Before you get access to their materials, you're required to prove that you have a visual impairment of some kind. Otherwise, college students with perfect eyesight across the country would be getting the tapes so they could study without having to actually read the textbook. (I would have slept with them running under my pillow the night before exams.)
The recording process is also carefully controlled. If you sign up to volunteer, you go to a recording center, sit in a booth, and read into a microphone. If you're unable to visit a center, you're unable to contribute (as a reader) to the recordings.
What surprises me is that they haven't figured out to crowdsource this material yet. Wikipedia is content generated by millions of people around the world. Anyone with a computer and an Internet connection is free to participate.
If anyone with a microphone and the ability to produce MP3s was allowed to read books and upload their readings from their home, I would read a lot more books for RFBD. I have a Sony Digital Voice Recorder and a headset, so it would be a cinch for me to produce my own books on tape in an hour or two once a week. I also think there's lots of people in a similar situation as me, with access to similar technology, who would be willing to dictate textbooks onto tape from their homes.
Naturally, there are differences between Wikipedia and books on tape. Text is text, so, a few misspellings aside, it's not as though a Wikipedia entry can be terrible. Recordings, on the other hand, can be awful if the levels aren't right, or if there's a lot of background noise. It's impossible to correct errors in the middle of a recording without more advanced software.
I could just start reading books I like onto digital recordings and put them online, but I'm pretty sure that would get me sued eventually.
RFBD, as an organization, can't do anything to piss off the copyright holders, so for a while, their recording process is likely remain a closed system. I'm willing to bet they've thought of this idea, and are trying to figure out how to crowdsource the recording process remotely, to reduce the use of studio time, without compromising quality.
My guess: it'll be done by a different non-profit...one that emerges in the next decade. Recording For the Blind and Dyslexic has a system, and it works. Once upon a time, Blockbuster had a system, and it worked...then along came Netflix.
The textbooks are copyrighted material, so the organization is not, understandably, just handing out these memberships to anyone who asks. Before you get access to their materials, you're required to prove that you have a visual impairment of some kind. Otherwise, college students with perfect eyesight across the country would be getting the tapes so they could study without having to actually read the textbook. (I would have slept with them running under my pillow the night before exams.)
The recording process is also carefully controlled. If you sign up to volunteer, you go to a recording center, sit in a booth, and read into a microphone. If you're unable to visit a center, you're unable to contribute (as a reader) to the recordings.
What surprises me is that they haven't figured out to crowdsource this material yet. Wikipedia is content generated by millions of people around the world. Anyone with a computer and an Internet connection is free to participate.
If anyone with a microphone and the ability to produce MP3s was allowed to read books and upload their readings from their home, I would read a lot more books for RFBD. I have a Sony Digital Voice Recorder and a headset, so it would be a cinch for me to produce my own books on tape in an hour or two once a week. I also think there's lots of people in a similar situation as me, with access to similar technology, who would be willing to dictate textbooks onto tape from their homes.
Naturally, there are differences between Wikipedia and books on tape. Text is text, so, a few misspellings aside, it's not as though a Wikipedia entry can be terrible. Recordings, on the other hand, can be awful if the levels aren't right, or if there's a lot of background noise. It's impossible to correct errors in the middle of a recording without more advanced software.
I could just start reading books I like onto digital recordings and put them online, but I'm pretty sure that would get me sued eventually.
RFBD, as an organization, can't do anything to piss off the copyright holders, so for a while, their recording process is likely remain a closed system. I'm willing to bet they've thought of this idea, and are trying to figure out how to crowdsource the recording process remotely, to reduce the use of studio time, without compromising quality.
My guess: it'll be done by a different non-profit...one that emerges in the next decade. Recording For the Blind and Dyslexic has a system, and it works. Once upon a time, Blockbuster had a system, and it worked...then along came Netflix.