[bksvol-discuss] Re: Awesome - 151,663 Titles on Bookshare

From: "Kim Friedman" <kimfri11@xxxxxxxxxxx>
To: <bksvol-discuss@xxxxxxxxxxxxx>
Date: Sat, 23 Jun 2012 18:57:00 -0700
Hi, Roger I think what Judy wrote about selective perception is right on
the mark. If you were an artist specializing in painting, you would see
many more colors, their shades tints, and hues, more intensely and
vividly than non-artists because you'd have to be more precise. I
suppose if one was a sculptor or ceramicist, you would be concerned with
the feel of what you are working with. I find my sisters are not very
articulate when they have to describe things to me because I believe
they don't know how to translate what they see in vivid detail and lack
the vocabulary. I find other sighted folks can describe what they see
more vividly maybe because they observe more intensely and can translate
what strikes them. I would also think there are blind people who might
lack the vocabulary to relate what they sense and how. I think
articulateness and its lack seem to run the gamut of all the senses. I
can hear a mourning dove, but how can I relate the sound to someone who
has never heard it? I could say it was sweet, somewhat sad, and in the
tonal range of a violin or flute, but that wouldn't tell you my visceral
sense of its song. Regards, Kim Friedman.
-----Original Message-----
From: bksvol-discuss-bounce@xxxxxxxxxxxxx
[mailto:bksvol-discuss-bounce@xxxxxxxxxxxxx] On Behalf Of Roger Loran
Bailey
Sent: Saturday, June 23, 2012 8:23 AM
To: bksvol-discuss@xxxxxxxxxxxxx
Subject: [bksvol-discuss] Re: Awesome - 151,663 Titles on Bookshare


When I was losing my eyesight I had numerous eye surgeries. On occasion
I found myself in a hospital bed with my eyes bandaged and the nurses
would come around. This blindness stuff was rather new to me, so I asked
the nurses to describe themselves. Some of them went into very great
detail and I formed mental images of them. Then the bandages would come
off and I could see them and I saw that their descriptions were very
accurate. However, none of them looked anything at all like I had them
pictured. The simple fact is that if you have normal eyesight and you
merely glance at something you, without even necessarily being
consciously aware of it, take in an enormous amount of subtle detail.
These details include very subtle grades of color, texture,minute
features, a wayward hair, a dust mote levels of lighting, sources of
lighting, background detail and so many other things that neither I nor
anyone else can go into them. This is all in just a single glance, not
even a careful study. Your description may be good, but it cannot
possibly cover everything. There is just too much, including details
that even though you are looking right at them you are not consciously
aware of and that other people seeing the same thing may be aware of. I
once met a blind woman who insisted that describing was just as good as
seeing because she could describe someone well enough that you could
pick them out in a crowd. She had never seen, though, and my
disagreement with her was based on my previous experience as a sighted
person. She still insisted though. I am sure that those nurses had
described themselves well enough that I could have picked them out in a
crowd too, but they still did not look anything like I had them
pictured. Descriptions often have to do and some descriptions do better
than other descriptions, but there is no way that a description will
reproduce the picture. 

On 6/23/2012 2:11 AM, Cindy wrote:


I must take issue with your comment that "no" words can cover all the
detail in a picture that an eye can take in a single glance. It
does,however, take a great many words. If you look at some of the early
children's books for which I described pictures, you'll see they are
very detailed--including the pictures on the walls, the furniture  in
rooms, the clothes the people wore, what the people looked like, what
food was fallng from the sky, and more; I was so used to being very
detailed in my picture descriptions that I kept on when I described the
various photos and pictures in Medals of Honor; especially when it was
pointed out that many blind people had no idea what the medal of Honor
was or what some of the statues and locations that I identified looked

It occurred to me, later that it was not necessary in adult books that I
later proofed that I had to describe the illustrations; I could just
identify them. When I began describing images for the Poet Project, I
continued being detailed in my descriptions; check the descriptions in
the the early pages  of Glencoe Health book. Then I was told that the
image descriptions should be *short* complete sentences; so I stopped
describing what the person looked like and what he/she was wearing and
the surroundings. I wish I could remember which history book the textile
mill photo is in. That description took a great many words (and time) to
describe.
Cindy



From: Roger Loran Bailey  <mailto:rogerbailey81@xxxxxxx>
<rogerbailey81@xxxxxxx>
To: bksvol-discuss@xxxxxxxxxxxxx 
Sent: Friday, June 22, 2012 5:20 PM
Subject: [bksvol-discuss] Re: Awesome - 151,663 Titles on Bookshare


Actually, I think a picture is worth so many times a thousand words that
the count is unimaginable. That is, no description can possibly cover
all the detail in a picture that a single glance can take in.
On 6/22/2012 6:05 PM, Chela Robles wrote:
> And, you do know a picture is worth a thousand words, right?
> 
> -- "Passion is a great motivator. Music is a life-long learning
experience."
> -- Chela Robles
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by filling out the form on the page at: http://tinyurl.com/84tucwv
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us,visit: http://www.bookshare.org/
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space as is this is my referral link to you: http://db.tt/XpUTe0E
> -- 
> On 6/22/2012 3:00 PM, Ali Al-hajamy wrote:
>> It may sound odd, but even as a blind participant who has never had
sight of any sort, illustrations are important to me because I read many
fictions which use illustrations in an effort to produce a certain
desired effect with pictures, and even just knowing what is on the page
is enough to get me involved enough in the book to feel the effect
they're trying to accomplish. Two examples are The Raw Shark Texts, by
Steven Hall, and The Tunnel, by William H. Gass. In the former case, at
one point, the main character falls out of a ship and into water, and a
giant shark made entirely of words and information (it's complicated)
begins to swim through the water twoards him. For maybe forty pages, the
picture of the shark is printed on the page, and it keeps getting larger
and larger. Because each page had a description of the shark swimming
twoards the character, growing with each page, my experience of the book
was more enhanced than if I didn't have those descriptions. My reaction
to the rest of the book was mixed, but that was one trick which I
thought worked very well. It was hilarious and terrifying at the same
time.
>> The Tunnel is a more complicated case.
>> (SPOILERS AHEAD! It doesn't matter since I can't think of anyone here
[or anywhere, really] who would be interested in reading that book, but
just in case...)
>> It is about a college professor, called William Frederick Kohler, who
is working on his hypothesis concerning the Germans, called Guilt and
Innocence in Hitler's Germany. he has almost completed it, save for the
introduction, but cannot manage to write those final pages:
>> "It was my intention, when I began, to write an introduction to my
work on the Germans. Though its thick folders lie beside me now, I know
I cannot. Endings, instead, possess me. all ways out.
>> 
>> Embarrassed, I'm compelled to smile. I was going to extend my
sympathy to my opponents. Here, in my introduction, raised above me like
an arch of triumph, I meant to place a wreath upon myself. But each time
I turned my pen to the task, it turned aside to strike me.
>> 
>> As I look at the pages of my manuscript, or stare at the books which
wall my study, I realize I must again attempt to put this prison of my
life in language."
>> 
>> He begins to write an extended meditation about his own life instead
of the introduction to the book he thought he had to have. Around two
hundred pages in, he also begins to dig a tunnel out of his basement,
creating his own physical metaphor and giving the books title duel
meanings. We, the readers, are tunnelling into his thoughts, he is
tunnelling out of the life he hates, with the new book he is writing
about himself he is tunnelling away from the hypothesis he can't finish.
And all the tunnels lead to a dead end. (There's a point to this, I
swear). Gass uses numerous graphical tricks to immerse you in the
experience. Drawings, cartoons, at one point, a page that is made to
look like a crinkled grocery sack, ETC. I haven't read the entire book
yet, but one that stands out at me is the very last page. Kohler has
created his own imaginary political group, called the party of the
Disappointed People, yet he knows that this, like everything else, would
be a failure because it's the type of party few would want to admit
they've joined. At the end of the book, he is in ruins. His wife is
leaving him, he has nearly been buried alive by his tunnel, he doesn't
know what the point to both his books was:
>> "Write no more propaganda for the PdP. Achieve dignity Sport a swatch
of Shawwhite beard bleached to remove cig stains, and trimmed square to
greet the face of its maker. In short, to abide. In the last hamlet of
feeling. I'm inclined to say why not? Sure. Or dump every dirty drawer
onto my desk--wasn't that really Martha's suggestion?--till the desk's
hid, as well as Tabor's turning chair and the floor which firmed our
feet, covering the pages of my History as my History sheeted me; there
to let my words wait, like the disappointed people bide, before they try
life again. Meanwhile carry on without complaining. No arm with armband
raised on high. No more booming bands, no searchlit skies. Or shall I,
like the rivers, rise? Ah. Well. Is rising wise? Revolver like the
Führer near an ear. Or lay my mind down by sorrow's side."
>> 
>> The final page simply contains the symbol for the PDP. I've likely
mangled everything in my description, because I haven't read the entire
book, I've never had to put my admiration for it into words like this,
and there's so, so much more to it than what I've just described here,
so the effect is always diminished if you haven't read the entire thing
first, but to have gone through everything we have with Kohler for 651
pages, to have tunnelled with him, so to speak, and then to read his
final declaration, followed by that reminder of his final failure...It's
quite devistating. And I don't think I would have experienced the book
in that manner if the images were not described. I don't even need an
especially detailed description, though it helps, just something to
signify what is on the page. And Bookshare staff and volunteers do both
wonderfully.
>> 
>> Tl;dr (too long; didn't read) version (since I think there might be
one person who has read this entire message):
>> I REALLY LIKE THE DESCRIPTIONS THEY'RE VERY HELPFUL AND MAKE THE
BOOK-READING EXPERIENCE BETTER!
>> 
>> On 22-Jun-12 15:40, Judy s. wrote:
>>> I just looked at the new version of Bookshare's entry page on the
website (http://www.bookshare.org <http://www.bookshare.org/> ). I love
the new feature on the right hand side of the page that's a counter of
how many books are in the collection.  As of today, there are 151,663
titles.  That is totally awesome.
>>> 
>>> As a sighted but disabled member, I'm also grateful for and thrilled
by the number of publisher quality books that have entered the
collection in the last 18 months with the original illustrations intact.
I haven't read a book where I can look at the illustrations for over 20
years.  Way to go, Bookshare!  I'm psyched about the POET project to get
illustrations described. It gives me hope that eventually everyone can
have access to both illustrations and good descriptions of the
illustrations in the future.
>>> 
>>> Judy s.
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References:
- [bksvol-discuss] Re: Awesome - 151,663 Titles on Bookshare
  - From: Roger Loran Bailey
[bksvol-discuss] Re: Awesome - 151,663 Titles on Bookshare

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