Dear Melissa and Booksharian FriendsMelissa, I understand your points and agree with you. NLS makes browsing easy and that's often how I choose web braille, hard copy braille, taped and digitized books. It's unfortunate that when subscribers leisurely browse books without a particular title in mind, literally thousands of books aren't listed in the categories where they belong. These kinds of conditions, including other inconveniences like the very slow loading pages, inadequate synopses and books with scannoes because they haven't been carefully proofread detract from the image we all want Bookshare to deserve, that of being a quality provider of books to reading disabled people.
When considering how volunteers can contribute beyond the basic scanning and proofing we have always done, it would be a boost to morale and book quality if upgrading synopses, inserting appropriate categorization and improving accuracy of existing files which weren't thoroughly proofread, became volunteer tasks.
The trend has always been for Bookshare to improve over time but new developments and policy changes inevitably create new challenges. Many volunteers would be willing to address these challenges.
From the perspective of our publisher partners, tagging PQ books with appropriate categories will help the publishers feel more appreciated as downloading of their books is likely to increase when their books are more easily found.
Meanwhile, patience, faith, commitment to accuracy by careful scanning and cleaning up by scanners, and formatting, reading through every page, double checking fonts and page numbers and spell checking by proofreaders, and writing informative synopses by someone for every volunteer prepared book, and our continued upbeat and supportive participation are ways we will continue to contribute to Bookshare's wonderful work.
Always with love, Lissi----- Original Message ----- From: "Melissa Smith" <mdsmith25@xxxxxxxx>
To: <bksvol-discuss@xxxxxxxxxxxxx> Sent: Friday, May 13, 2011 9:56 AMSubject: [bksvol-discuss] Re: OT: So when I was browsing Bookshare I saw that...
Oh, I find John's list helpful too, but I'm really talking about just deciding one day that I wanted to read a romance novel, or something. I would normally go to the Bookshare site, and click on the romance category. I could then just browse all the romance titles, but since the PQ books aren't categorized, I'd miss a whole lot of romance novels that are available.Melissa Smith On 5/13/2011 8:37 AM, Sue Stevens wrote:Hi Melissa,I find John's list to be helpful with this. I go through the uncategorized list each day if I have time, and see if there are any books that sound good.Hope this helps, Sue S. -----Original Message----- From: Melissa Smith Sent: Friday, May 13, 2011 6:33 AM To: bksvol-discuss@xxxxxxxxxxxxxSubject: [bksvol-discuss] Re: OT: So when I was browsing Bookshare I saw that...The publisher quality books are often, if not always, submitted without any categories selected. I also find this very annoying. Some time ago, I asked here if someone would be going back and categorizing them, but never got a response, which I assume to mean no. Since there are so many publisher quality books being donated, people are going to miss out on a lot without them being categorized. When I first joined, I simply browsed a couple of categories that I was interested in. Think how much I would have missed. Now I usually do a search for something particular, but if I'm just looking for an interesting book in a particular category, there's a good chance I'll miss something I would have liked to have read. Melissa Smith On 5/13/2011 6:16 AM, Nat Barrett wrote:Hello,I was wondering about something. And I didn't know where else to throw this out except the volunteer list. Anyway, just now I clicked on the new to collection page. I was surprised to see quite a few publisher quality Harlequin books. The thing is, I didn't remember seeing them earlier, when I cruised through the romance category Thursday afternoon. Thinking maybe they were recently added since the date of addition was 5/13/2011 and where I am it's only a little after 1 a.m. Friday morning as I type this, I thought maybe it was very recent. However, I clicked to browse the romance category again, and I was correct. Those books I saw on the new to collection page were not listed in the romance category. In fact, when I clicked on one of the books listed on the new to collection page, they didn't have a category selected at all. Or at least, not that I saw. Is this a simple oversight or is there a reason for this? I'm just a little confused because normally when I want a romance, I look at the romance category page for new additions. I'll work through this if this is the way. But I'm going to find it a little more time consuming to check out what's done by Harlequin and what's a fiction novel with heavy romantic influence. If that makes sense to everyone. Lol.Thanks for listening to me ramble, NatalieTo 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.----- No virus found in this message. Checked by AVG - www.avg.com Version: 10.0.1321 / Virus Database: 1500/3634 - Release Date: 05/12/11 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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