I agree wholeheartedly. I hate finding a book I want to read only to find I can't read it because it doesn't make much sense.
Julia----- Original Message ----- From: "Grandma Cindy" <popularplace@xxxxxxxxx>
To: <bksvol-discuss@xxxxxxxxxxxxx> Sent: Friday, November 23, 2007 8:20 PM Subject: [bksvol-discuss] Re: A Proposal For A Quality Solution
My personal opinion is that only books that are Excellent, which does allow for a few errors,should now be included. I'd allow Good, too, except that the books I've seen rated Good do not fit my idea of Good but only Fair. I don't see how anybody has the patience to read books that have garbled words and sentences and missing pages. Sentences that have occasional missing words, such as in the book I'm validating now, aren't so bad because it happens to be easy to fill in from the context--either by writing them in as I, the validator, am doing, or mentally. JMO G.Cindy --- Monica Willyard <rhyami@xxxxxxxxx> wrote:I would like to propose a solution to resolve the ongoing quality control issues that have plagued Bookshare since I started volunteering 2 years ago. As Bookshare grows, we're going to have some growing pains. Things aren't as they were six years ago, and we have to find ways to work through our growth challenges graciously . The Salvation Army had to do something like this in the past, and so have other groups who depend on volunteers for part of their work force. Quality control is an issue that keeps cropping up and is something that is causing frustration for staff, readers, and volunteers alike. We are producing books for people who actually want to read them and are also serving a growing population of students. At some point, I think we have to set a baseline for what is useful and what is just garbage. The Toys For Tots program won't let you donate broken toys for children. They insist on a baseline for quality because no one wants to open a broken toy for Christmas. No one wants to read an illegible book they download from Bookshare either. Quality is one of the things staff and volunteers hear about when we go to conventions, and teachers want quality if they're going to use Bookshare for their students. I'd really like to see staff give a firm definition of what fair means, because there really is a quality lower than fair. As it stands now, fair could mean almost anything, even a book at only 22 percent accuracy. I'd like to see fair defined clearly for everyone and then for all books on step 1 to be run through the Bookshare tools. Any books below the defined level should be deleted from step 1 automatically and could be reviewed by Claire as she reviews all other rejections. Then we could start with a mostly clean slate. Yes, that means we'd lose around 40 to 50 books in this process, but these are books that will end up being rejected anyway. This policy change would prevent the waste of hundreds of volunteer manpower hours because the tools can assess books in a matter of a minute or so. Time is a nonrenewable resource, and our volunteer hours could be spent in more productive ways such as scanning books from the wish list, validating books, and teaching new users how to use Bookshare. I have been told that setting up guidelines would discriminate against people using older technology. However, I have scanned books for college and my own use for 17 years. Over that time, I have met many people who are able to scan and proofread text from a wide range of books with good results. Some of our volunteers use very old technology and still produce clean, readable scans. Jim, Bookshare's passionate founder, helped to create Openbook, and he helped make scanning work well with Openbook Ruby, technology that is close to 10 years old. For these reasons, I believe it is very possible for users of older technology to continue to volunteer, even if Bookshare created quality control guidelines. Establishing a baseline for scan quality is a fair-minded process. It won't single out problem submitters or discriminate against anyone. It simply says that broken books, like broken toys, cannot be accepted because it's not fair to the recipient. I hope you will consider my suggestion along with those of staff and other volunteers. I care deeply about Bookshare and want it to flourish. I'm proud of the work we've done here, and I want it to ring out like the clarity of a fine bell that gleams in the sunshine, a beacon of hope, help, and good books for us all. Monica Willyard To unsubscribe from this list send a blank Email to bksvol-discuss-request@xxxxxxxxxxxxx put the word 'unsubscribe' by itself in the subject line. To get a list of available commands, put the word 'help' by itself in the subject line.____________________________________________________________________________________ Never miss a thing. Make Yahoo your home page. http://www.yahoo.com/r/hs To unsubscribe from this list send a blank Email to bksvol-discuss-request@xxxxxxxxxxxxxput the word 'unsubscribe' by itself in the subject line. To get a list of available commands, put the word 'help' by itself in the subject line.
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