[bksvol-discuss] Re: Requirements for acceptance -- the bottom line
- From: "Silvara" <silvara@xxxxxxx>
- To: <bksvol-discuss@xxxxxxxxxxxxx>
- Date: Fri, 13 Aug 2004 22:38:09 -0400
I have a couple of points that I'd like to discuss.
What is readable is very subjective. As you stated Mary, what is considered
readable to one person can be totally frustrating for another. The example
about the term paper perfectly illustrates my feelings in this matter. I
too, would like to know if it's possible to raise the quality standards for
bookshare. I totally love this idea of bookshare and how we can have instant
access to a wide variety of books. But I strongly feel that quality is
important. After all, bookshare is not a free service. If we don't pay
cash, we pay with our time.
About 3 months ago I noticed that there were a lot of books waiting to be
validated. Thus, over the past 3 months I've spent a lot of my free time
validating. I've validated thirty something books during this period. I
spent time doing some basic cleaning up so that these books could be even
better. However, the comments by the powers-that- be, during this week has
lead me to feel that my efforts to improve the books were a waste of my
time, and worse, not appreciated. I can not consciously approve books
knowing that with a little extra time spent on the clean up process, the
book's quality can approach near-perfection. Thus, the result is that I
will have to think about how much time I want to devote to bookshare in the
future.
----- Original Message -----
From: "Mary Otten" <maryotten@xxxxxxxxxxxxx>
To: <bksvol-discuss@xxxxxxxxxxxxx>
Sent: Friday, August 13, 2004 8:03 PM
Subject: [bksvol-discuss] Re: Requirements for acceptance -- the bottom line
> Ah yes. the notion of what is readable is the rub in all of this. Richard,
I love your idea about the volunteers and validating.
> But getting back to the idea of readable, consider, if you will, what
would happen to you if you turned in a term paper, let's not even discuss a
thesis or disertation, just a garden variety term paper, and that paper had
> a bunch of cross-outs, scribblings, maybe a few coffee stains obscuring
some of the text. What are the chances, do you suppose, that you would get
anything but an F on that messy paper, 95 or even 98 percent of
> which might be perfectly readable? Why the heck should people pay for
anything less than the high end of "good" quality? Why shouldn't we as
submitters of materials take enough pride in what we submit to want to
> make it truly readable, i.e. containing some errors, but not so many that
the meaning of entire passages is garbled? Obviously, if you have an old
book with a bad font that just won't ocr well, there's not a lot you can
> do. I've got such a book that I keep trying, hoping that the next
iteration of K1k will unlock the key to the crummy Soviet-era font and paper
on which the book was printed, so that I can actually enjoy reading the
> book myself and have a decent enough scan to post for anybody else crazy
enough to want to read this particular volume. <smile>
> Somebody posted a question asking about how the standards were decided
upon, or words to that effect. I too would be interested in that, and would
like to know if there is anything that we can do to revisit the issue
> and get them raised. The word "readable" means very different things to
different people, it would seem. Otherwise, we wouldn't have titles on the
system with portions that are totally garbled and not at all readable.
> Mary
>
>
>
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