Excellent suggestion Evan. Especially since others have mentioned recently that they've come across books with easy to fix but really annoying problems (like name of a main character spelled wrong), but there is no way to correct it.
Misha On 7/27/2012 9:08 AM, Evan Reese wrote:
Good note, Mike. I would only add that someone here, (can't remember who), had the excellent idea that Bookshare could put the rtf files of books that have had quality reports submitted about them on the Check Out page. There are currently 40 titles on the Unresolved Quality Issues page. I don't know how many of those are PQ, but it's worth thinking about. If most of them are not PQ books, then that would certainly help bulk up the Check Out list. Wouldn't bring it up to anything like the old days of course, but still ... It would also be great if, when putting up the rtf file, Bookshare could include the quality report. That way, volunteers could determine whether the book would be easy to fix or more challenging.Evan ----- Original Message ----- From: "misha" <mishatronics@xxxxxxxxx> To: <bksvol-discuss@xxxxxxxxxxxxx> Sent: Friday, July 27, 2012 9:27 AM Subject: [bksvol-discuss] Re: New 3 hold maximum in check out queueI can't make the meeting this morning, so here are my thoughts on the holds.First, the holds themselves aren't a new problem, this topic is discussed on this list every few months. Comments fly back and forth, fast and furious, with about as many in favor of holds as against them. That to me indicates that this is a problem with no simple easy solution. Even when there were many more books on the checkout list, when proofers can't find books they are interested in, except ones with holds, we complain (and some resort to poaching). When those who scan books get burned by poor proofing of one of their books, we complain (and resort to picking those they will accept as proofers and putting holds on all their scans).One factor that to me has improved the situation is that over about the past year, the way books are approved for entry into bookshare has improved greatly. Now, when Carrie checks whether the final book is ready to go into the collection, she also checks how much time has been spent on proofing, and she compares the original submission to the proofed scan. If hardly any time or effort has been put into the proofing she puts it back on the proofing queue, with a hold for the proofer. So, bookshare itself is adding to the number of books with holds, but in a way that improves the quality of the books that get into the collection. Bookshare has also moved the books for the outsourcers to a separate queue. Those books always have holds for on them so when those were in the same queue as books for volunteers, the number of unavailable books really looked bad. There was also the training program for new scanners that resulted in a hold for of a test book being put into the queue for each new proofer. There were also books with BTC added to the title that were supposed to be reserved for new proofers because an automated system had been used at bookshare to do many of the routine tasks proofers do to make the books easier for new proofers to tackle.One negative factor (from the point of view of volunteers, though very positive from the view of overall bookshare users) is the huge increase in books from publishers. Especially since the publishers insist that their copy should replace any volunteer supplied copy. This is probably in part why there are fewer volunteer submitted books, some volunteers don't want to scan any more if their work will just be replaced by a publisher copy.So, I've been thinking maybe there are a few more things bookshare can do to provide more books for volunteers who only or mostly proof. Carrie used to scan books and place them in the queue for proofing. As I understand it, this isn't being done any more mostly because processing the large number of books for the educational grant has kept everyone at the bookshare office too busy to get around to scanning extra books. Perhaps bookshare could set aside a little time to put books into the volunteer queue. Also, without knowing what kind of computer it runs on, maybe a version of the BTC processor could be made available to scanning volunteers. Then, scanning volunteers could get more books into the queue faster.Finally, on the human (and thus more difficult side), perhaps a few reminders could be posted to the list (I know not everyone who volunteers isn't on the list). One to ask scanners and proofers who work together to coordinate their work so as few as possible books go to the submit queue with hold for on them. That is, don't submit 10 books to the queue when the proofer can only take 5 at a time meaning that five of the ten will sit in the queue for some time. Another notice that proofers who ask for holds should be conscientious about getting these off the queue as soon as possible. And another reminder that whenever possible (regular fiction and shorter non-fiction) scanners should put books up to be available to any scanner.Personally, I think the original idea for bookshare, that since blind readers have to scan print books in order for the books to be accessible to them, then wouldn't it be great if the result of that work could be made more widely available rather than repeated by every blind person, and the Chaffee amendment to the copyright act making this legal is such a good idea, everyone should be willing to put some effort into keeping it going. Remember, this is work being done by people volunteering their time, it won't always be efficient, I won't always be able to work on what I'd like, you won't always get the results you want, but it is work being done that wouldn't be done otherwise, and the work really is being done.Well, maybe it's good I can't make the meeting, that is so long it would have taken the whole meeting by itself.Misha 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.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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