[bksvol-discuss] Re: The job of a proofreader is...
- From: "Ixchel, Jackie" <starsandhearts2@xxxxxxxxx>
- To: bksvol-discuss@xxxxxxxxxxxxx
- Date: Fri, 20 Apr 2012 12:12:52 -0400
Hi,
Don't bookshare staff members look through a submitted book once it
has been proofread. Anne, great job for putting in that report. I
would do that too. I can't believe that, how are you even reading the
book? If it were me, I probably would have stopped at that point.
Jackie
On 4/20/12, Chanelle Allen <chanellem.allen@xxxxxxxxx> wrote:
> 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.
>>>>
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--
Currently Reading: The Lost Hero by Rick Riordan and Hex Hall by Rachel Hawkins
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