[bksvol-discuss] Re: Requirements for acceptance -- the bottom line
- From: "Richard Ely" <ely.r@xxxxxxxxxxx>
- To: <bksvol-discuss@xxxxxxxxxxxxx>
- Date: Fri, 13 Aug 2004 18:03:08 -0400
Ah,
There in lies the rub. That old #6. One readers notion of readable is another's
of execrable. Much
has to do with two things, how badly do you want to read the text and how many
errors are you
willing to accept. It is wonderful seeing the care and concern that most on
this list give to a text
they are submitting or approving. As a teacher with students who use these
books, I wish they were
all letter perfect. I think that such will be the case someday. For now, it
seems we must accept a
less than ideal, but only three years ago, none of this awful problem even
existed. No books, no
problem!
What does seem to be the case is the need for more volunteers to help in
validating books. In the
days before electronic Braille production, there were thousands of volunteers
across the country who
had passed their transcribers certification and who banged away at their
Perkins braillers at home
cranking out books. Seems that there are many more computer literate retirees
then ever. They do not
need to learn the Braille code to make books available. For the most part, all
they need is the
skills that many already have, proof reading and word processing. What we need
to do is to find
better ways to let people know what they might do in a few hours each week at
their own computers. I
am giving thought to donating the computer I am composing on to our local
library for the specific
task of providing a computer to volunteers in our little town to use to
validate books. If Deb the
librarian agrees, I hope to start doing regular small group classes on how to
validate. What if
there were say 500 other libraries offering something similar. At the rate of
one book per day, five
days per week each library would validate 260 books. At capacity, such an
effort could validate
130,000 books per year. That might go a long way in cleaning up that backlog of
texts awaiting
valedation.
Rather than picking the nits of weather or not a submitted book is good enough
to accept, let's work
at increasing the numbers of validators, and the access points they need to do
validation.
Rick
----- Original Message -----
From: "Jesse Fahnestock" <Jesse.F@xxxxxxxxxxxx>
To: <bksvol-discuss@xxxxxxxxxxxxx>
Sent: Friday, August 13, 2004 5:10 PM
Subject: [bksvol-discuss] Requirements for acceptance -- the bottom line
> Hi everyone -- I have recently received many emails from volunteers confused
> about whether they
must reject a book or not. I think the higher standards maintained by many
members in this group
have confused people. Therefore, I will restate, as I did on Monday, what a
book must have to be
accepted:
>
> 1. The book is not already on Bookshare.org, or if it is, that it is being
> submitted as a superior
replacement or transcribed Braille copy.
> 2. The book is not an eBook acquired under proprietary agreement (e.g. a
> commercial eBook, a book
from WebBraille, etc.)
> 3. The copyright name and date are included.
> 4. The title and author are included somewhere in the book.
> 5. The book is not missing multiple pages of core content (core content does
> not include tables of
contents, indeces, picture pages, or other front or back matter and the like).
> 6. The book is readable.
>
> If a book meets all of these requirements, you may absolutely accept the
> book. Indeed, I encourage
it. If the book is missing page numbers, or has running headers, or the table
of contents is
jumbled, or the title page is missing (but the above info is still available),
those are not bases
for rejecting the book.
>
> I predict that many volunteers will post follow-up messages regarding other
> things that they do,
and think that you should do, before approving a book. That is because we have
the most dedicated
volunteers in the world, and they go above and beyond the call of duty. But
even they know that
while they may do additional work to improve a book that meets the above six
requirements, they
should not reject a book that meets them all. So whatever the follow-up
messages say, remember that
this message is the bottom line!
>
> I hope that clears it up for everyone!
>
> ________________________
>
> Jesse Fahnestock
> Collection Development Coordinator, Bookshare.org
> www.bookshare.org
>
> A Project of The Benetech Initiative - Technology Serving Humanity
> 480 S. California Ave., Suite 201
> Palo Alto, CA 94306-1609 USA
> (650)475-5440 x133
> (650) 475-1066 FAX
> jesse@xxxxxxxxxxxx
> www.benetech.org
>
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