I submitted a quality report on a book several months ago and was pleasantly surprised to receive a notice that the book had been rescanned. Since I have finally reactivated my membership, I will look at the book again. I appreciate that Bookshare volunteers and staff do everything possible to ensure excellent quality books. Because of my experiences reading Bookshare books, I am more committed to doing my best as a proofreader. Has the issue of dealing with negligent proofreaders been addressed? Chanelle Sent from my iPhone On Apr 20, 2012, at 9:59, Roger Loran Bailey <rogerbailey81@xxxxxxx> wrote: > Let me reply to my own post so that I can add something. Like I said, it is > rated as only good anyway and was added more than ten years ago when > Bookshare standards were much lower, but also remember that back then fair > quality books were also permitted. Have you ever tried reading one of those > fair rated books? Fair is not the correct word as far as I am concerned. The > word should be awful. Those fair quality books are virtually unreadable. They > are gradually disappearing from the collection, but try this. Go to the > advanced search and specify a category and specify the quality of fair. You > should get at least a few results and they were all added back in the > beginning days of Bookshare. Then try downloading and reading some. If you > are lucky you just might be able to read enough of it to get interested and > then when you reach a very important part you will encounter only garble. > That is if you get lucky. The more probable outcome is that you will > encounter garble from the start and find it all through. I think the quality > report system was introduced to actually gradually get rid of those kind of > books in the collection. It is working too, but it is, indeed, gradual. > Someone has to make a quality report first. Then Bookshare has to acquire a > copy of the book and scan it. Then it has to be outsourced to be proofed. > Obviously the more quality reports that come in the slower the process will > be. Do make those quality reports, though, and do consider submitting a BSO > if you can. > > On 4/20/2012 10:31 AM, Roger Loran Bailey wrote: >> I just took a look at its metadata page and I see that it is rated as only >> good anyway and that it was added on January 28 of 2002. Bookshare's >> standards were not as high then and based on what I have seen of the books >> that were added at that time such quality is pretty typical. There was a >> post here once that described what the duties of the proofreaders were back >> then. I don't recall exactly what it said, but I think it wasn't really much >> more than checking that a title page and a copyright page were present. It >> was not even called proofreading then. It was called validating and, indeed, >> I don't think that real proofreading was expected. Making the quality report >> is certainly the correct thing to do and based on the results that I have >> seen from making my own quality reports on similar older books in the >> collection it will probably be rescanned and sent to an outsourcer for >> proofing. >> >> On 4/20/2012 8:14 AM, Ann Parsons wrote: >>> Hi all, >>> >>> I'm writing because I just sent off a quality report about a book I'm >>> reading. Oh, I'm going to finish the book, it's part of a series I'm >>> reading, but I have a really hard and knotty question to ask volunteers. >>> >>> Here it is, folks. Is it the job of a proofer to actually *read* a book, >>> or can a proofer get away with checking title and so on, and then just >>> pushing the book through? >>> >>> If you answered that you thought you could get away with just checking >>> metadata, you'd be wrong, wrong three times over. This book I'm reading, >>> Divided Allegiance by Elizabeth Moon, has a wonderful title page and front >>> piece. Then, I started actually *reading* the blessed thing. Well, I >>> wasn't reading it, my DTBM was. Anyway, this book's quality was only good. >>> There were a million scanos including the mangling of the main character's >>> name. Do you know how aggravating it can be when your main character, >>> mentioned about ten times per page has her name mangled five out of those >>> ten times? Scannos like 'ff' for 'if' and garbage chars at the end of >>> pages. >>> >>> <frowning darkly> There is no excuse for this kind of sloppiness. Why do >>> you think it takes me weeks to proof a book? It's because I actually read >>> every, single, word in the whole blessed book! I have allowed a book to be >>> sent up after reading half or so of it, but only once. That was because >>> the scanner was known to me, the book I had read so far had been aeror >>> free, and I knew that the quality would be the same throughout! If I >>> proof, I read. All this stuff could have been easily fixed! <grrrrr> >>> Sorry for ranting guys, but I devoutly hope that my rant has stopped any >>> lazy proofers in their tracks and caused them to reexamine their work. >>> >>> Ann P. >>> >> To unsubscribe from this list send a blank Email to >> bksvol-discuss-request@xxxxxxxxxxxxx >> put 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@xxxxxxxxxxxxx > put 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@xxxxxxxxxxxxx put 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.