How to correct errors in books in the collectionHi Prat: Well said. I've only corrected 2 books that were in the collection. I only submitted one. The second is still sitting on my hard drive because it lacks page numbers and chapter titles. So I never felt comfortable submitting it. Perhaps someday I will rescan it. I am glad the staff decided to implement this new change. I believe it's better to start from scratch in order to get a better product. Grace----- Original Message ----- From: Pratik Patel To: bksvol-discuss@xxxxxxxxxxxxx Sent: Wednesday, June 06, 2007 5:13 PM Subject: [bksvol-discuss] Re: How to correct errors in books in the collection Lisa, thank you for this explanation. I am sure this will help clarify many concerns. For those volunteers who still have questions regarding this policy, I would like to add a few things if I may. As someone who has contributed to Bookshare.org from its inception, I've seen different phases in Bookshare's processes and different emphasis on areas where Bookshare has attempted to improve itself. In many ways, the volunteer community has driven Bookshare's growth and quality. Originally, as Shelly pointed out, the emphasis appeared to be in the quantity of submissions and not the quality. The collection of books began with a few individuals submitting their existing collections, which, as might be imagined, were entirely done for personal consumption and not for others. As a result, these books were admittedly of poor quality. They were also scanned by using systems that might be considered primitive by today's standards. There are quite a lot of books in the collection that bear the mark of such old systems. A few years after Bookshare became a well-known name, it conducted a user survey of needs. In this survey, the users were asked about their preferences regarding books. The most important finding in this survey was the overwhelming request for better navigability and better quality for Bookshare.org books. Over the last few years, the Bookshare emphasis has slowly, but steadily, changed toward requesting better quality of books. Some of the volunteers on this list--me included--have always insisted on superlative quality over quantity. And, I've not met a larger number of perfectionists than among the volunteer community represented on this list. Having said that, I am grateful for the new Bookshare emphasis. I always understood why Bookshare chose to increase its quantity of books. Partly it was done for business reasons, partly it was to ensure that funding would be available for the type of initiatives that the volunteers and users desired--the same type of initiatives that we are seeing now. A larger collection would mean a larger user base. A larger user base would mean better chances of survival. But now, I find many more BSO books and many more policies that emphasize increasing the quality of the collection. The page break requirement, the removal of unnecessary submission formats such as text (TXT), and the latest decision to ask for rescans instead of resubmissions from the collection makes me confident that Bookshare is moving in a direction where its collection will be steadily improved--not only by having new quality books added but also by having rescans of old books replace the existing ones in the collection. Even when there appeared to be a different focus in collection development, I have found the Bookshare staff to be quite responsive to volunteer needs. Whether Bookshare always had the resources and the expertise needed to carry out the various suggestions and correct errors is a different question. listening to the community and having the ability to carry out what is needed to implement the suggestions are entirely separate issues. We should not confuse the two. I have said this in the past and will say it again: the work done by the staff to compile a list of all bugs and suggestions into a single point where they may be tracked is particularly important. The recent changes to the site and to the process points to the fact that Bookshare is committed to make our lives as easy as possible. But, there will be times when Bookshare must make decisions without consulting volunteers. It is not, as much as we might wishes it to be, a democracy. It is a nonprofit business where many concerns must take equal precedence. I am confident that with Jim's and Lisa's leadership, Bookshare will always be responsive to user/volunteer needs. Above all, we always have to keep the big picture in mind. Whether we are unhappy about a particular decision or about the way in which that decision was made, it's important that we all consider Bookshare's history--i.e., where it has been and what it was; and then, and only then, can we really evaluate where Bookshare is now. Especially with numerous volunteers coming to Bookshare and joining this list, I want to be absolutely certain that we all understand where we have been. Here's to the new changes, new staff, and the new spirit of cooperation/collaboration. Pratik From: bksvol-discuss-bounce@xxxxxxxxxxxxx [mailto:bksvol-discuss-bounce@xxxxxxxxxxxxx] On Behalf Of Lisa Friendly Sent: Wednesday, June 06, 2007 1:07 PM To: bksvol-discuss@xxxxxxxxxxxxx Subject: [bksvol-discuss] How to correct errors in books in the collection Hi everyone, Here’s our summary of the process for correcting books with bad content – the issue we were discussing on the list for the last couple of days. Bookshare.org is now requesting that books be rescanned if a volunteer wishes to improve a book in the collection. Here’s why: After reviewing the various options for converting books in the collection to one of the formats required for submission, it has been determined that unfortunately, there is no way to convert a book already in the collection to a submission format without an unnacceptable reduction in the subsequent quality of the books navigation. Depending on which option would be used, the resulting file will be missing page breaks or page numbers, and it may be missing formatting such as bold, italic, underlining or text size. Since the loss of quality could be as much, if not more, than the quality gained by cleaning up the text, Bookshare.org has decided that it is in the best interests of its members at this time for books to be rescanned if a volunteer wishes to improve the quality of a book. Thanks, Lisa and the Bookshare.org team