[bksvol-discuss] Re: bookshare seems to be interested in quantity

  • From: "Robert Riddle" <captinlogic@xxxxxxxxx>
  • To: <bksvol-discuss@xxxxxxxxxxxxx>
  • Date: Tue, 26 Sep 2006 18:11:10 -0700

I've got scans of all three languishing here. Perhaps, Mister Reese would be interestied in comparing them with his own copy?
----- Original Message ----- From: "tom hawkins" <tjhawk1@xxxxxxxxxxx>
To: <bksvol-discuss@xxxxxxxxxxxxx>
Sent: Tuesday, September 26, 2006 4:01 PM
Subject: [bksvol-discuss] Re: bookshare seems to be interested in quantity



That is a great series Evan! Good Luck, Tom
----- Original Message ----- From: "Evan Reese" <mentat1@xxxxxxxxxxxxxx>
To: <bksvol-discuss@xxxxxxxxxxxxx>
Sent: Tuesday, September 26, 2006 1:28 PM
Subject: [bksvol-discuss] Re: bookshare seems to be interested in quantity



Well, aside from the problems I mentioned, and the fact that the first letter of each chapter is missing and some of the chapter headings are garbled, and that the vast majority of print page numbers are missing, the text quality is quite good. Perhaps this has something to do with the fact that the book was submitted by a Bookshare in-house volunteer, so the original scan was very good. But clearly whoever validated it never actually looked at the text of the book. Some of these hard returns in the middle of paragraphs may be due to a page break being in the print edition; but since I have seen perhaps a half-dozen print page numbers or so in the first 70 print pages, I cannot be sure. Certainly that does not account for all of them. Maybe a Daisy version would look better, but I would imagine that it still has the broken up words and the missing print page numbers.

This is The Book of Three by Lloyd Alexander, the first book in the Prydain series. Currently Bookshare has that one, The Black Cauldron and The High King, which was a Newbery winner. But books 3 and 4 of the series are not on Bookshare at all, and I was going to scan them. But I wanted to start the series from the beginning, since it has been many years since I have read it. I am really enjoying it anyhow, but I have to fix this up as I read my brf copy, and I'm thinking that I should probably rescan it. I haven't checked the other two yet, but unless they were done recently, as in after the Braille translator was upgraded, and unless some validator went through and fixed them up, they may need rescanning as well. Perhaps one of the DP's on this list who likes juveniles and/or who remembers these books fondly could take a look and check out the quality of The Black Cauldron and The High King. Perhaps we can share them out and get them into proper shape. I really don't like the thought of kids having to read them if they look like this one - especially Braille readers. There are few enough of them as it is, and this kind of quality would hardly seem to be an encouragement to read more. Before anyone asks, all of the books in the series are available on Web Braille, and in a couple of other versions as well. But that hardly seems a good reason to keep lousy versions on Bookshare. If the older books were retranslated with the recently upgraded Braille translator, perhaps some of these problems I mentioned would go away. But that wouldn't put in the missing print page numbers, or fix up all the broken up words.

----- Original Message ----- From: "Cindy" <popularplace@xxxxxxxxx>
To: <bksvol-discuss@xxxxxxxxxxxxx>
Sent: Tuesday, September 26, 2006 12:11 PM
Subject: [bksvol-discuss] Re: bookshare seems to be interested in quantity



I can't imagine how that got rated Excellent. It needs
to be rescanned or put on the download list to be
re-validated.--IMO

CIndy

--- Evan Reese <mentat1@xxxxxxxxxxxxxx> wrote:

I'm reading a book rated excellent right now.  Some
of the problems I think
are due to the old Braille translator.  Every word
of the Table of Contents
is on a separate line, every italicized word is on a
separate line - I've
seen this in other books done before the translator
was upgraded, but why it
did that I have no idea. Additionally, the book has
a lot of hard returns in
the middle of paragraphs.  But the most annoying
problem is that the book
has a lot of broken up words, where a hyphen might
have been in the original
book, but the hyphens are gone.  So in the brf
version, I have quite a few
things like i n sign g's on new lines, just as one
example.  I repeat, this
book has an excellent rating.  Regretfully, I
couldn't help wondering how
someone having this version as their first exposure
to Bookshare might
react.  Perhaps reading it anyway, but perhaps
deciding that Bookshare
wasn't for them.  This is especially unfortunate
because this is a juvenile,
and maybe the kid would be just so happy to read it
that he/she would just
skate by these kinds of things, but perhaps he/she
would be more put off of
reading it than an adult would be.  I don't know,
but it troubles me.

----- Original Message ----- From: "E." <thoth93@xxxxxxxxxxxxx>
To: <bksvol-discuss@xxxxxxxxxxxxx>
Sent: Tuesday, September 26, 2006 4:53 AM
Subject: [bksvol-discuss] Re: bookshare seems to be
interested in quantity



> Another thought is garbage in garbage out. > > Folks are rightly offended at paying for bookshar subscriptions and then, > if particularly unlucky, downloading a book rated excellent which turns > out not to be so. > > Apparently particular upset is reserved for 1 instead of I resulting in "1 > have" etc. and people particularly hate reading for pleasure when the book > is of poor quality in some way. I think folks may be willing to slog > through more muck if they have to read a textbook. An example might be my > being willing to listen to somebody read a textbook badly but not put up > with it if reading a novel for my own amusement. > > What you say, she is sometimes doing things for amusement? > > E. > >>I believe that you are correct. And perhaps it is the proper strategy at >>this point, though I'm not certain of it. One thought process might be >>that >>it's important in the first few years of Bookshare's life to build >>numbers, >>to show that the collection can grow when driven by the needs and wants of >>the blind membership. >> >>On the other hand, many people, myself included, won't touch a fair book, >>and would argue that they don't really count as a part of the collection >>as >>they are of such inferior quality. >> >>Why do I envision myself like Tevia ... He's right ... No, he's right. >> >>Ah, just rambling. >> >>Lora >> >> >>-----Original Message----- >>From: bksvol-discuss-bounce@xxxxxxxxxxxxx >>[mailto:bksvol-discuss-bounce@xxxxxxxxxxxxx] On Behalf Of E. >>Sent: Tuesday, September 26, 2006 5:32 AM >>To: bksvol-discuss@xxxxxxxxxxxxx >>Subject: [bksvol-discuss] bookshare seems to be interested in quantity >> >>I suspect that bookshare still wants to give most of the monetary reward >>to >>the person submitting the book rather than the person validating it and so >>is not likely to make the difference more "equitable" as you want. I base >>this suspicion on the fact that bookshare still permits submits of poor >>quality books rather than raising the bar, thereby making less work for >>validators and improving the quality of bookshare's collection. Bookshare >>for now seems to want to keep the bar low and strive for quantity. >> >>E. >>At 07:15 AM 9/26/2006, you wrote: >> >> >Hi Monica, >> > >> >I do understand that some people validate for credits, and there's >> >nothing at all wrong with that. On the other hand, many of the people >> >on this list, yourself included, strike me as dedicated, and willing to >> >do a good job for Bookshare at the same time. Originally, Evan I think >> >it was, said that by offering more money, people would just rush >> >through their validations to get the credits. Although this may be >> >true for some, I still find it hard to believe that most volunteers >> >would do that. Didn't someone say that only seven people paid for their >>memberships through their volunteer efforts? >> > >> >On the other hand, I'd rather see the pay scale changed entirely. >> >Perhaps >> >$2 for submissions, and $1 for validation, would balance the scales >> >more equably. >> > >> >This would balance so that 25 submissions, or 50 validations, would pay >> >for a renewal of membership. >> > >> >And if offering more for validations would cause people to race through >> >a validation, offering less would seem to encourage people to race even >> >faster. After all, if I'll only make fifty cents per validation, that >> >means I'll have to validate 100 books to get through the renewal >> >process. Better validate real fast! >> > >> >-----Original Message----- >> >From: bksvol-discuss-bounce@xxxxxxxxxxxxx >> >[mailto:bksvol-discuss-bounce@xxxxxxxxxxxxx] On Behalf Of Monica >> >Willyard >> >Sent: Monday, September 25, 2006 10:50 PM >> >To: bksvol-discuss@xxxxxxxxxxxxx >> >Subject: [bksvol-discuss] Re: a sort of raise for validators >> > >> >Hi, Cindy. I have a scanner and use Openbook to scan. What I was >> >trying to say is that without credits, I wouldn't do much on the >> >validating side of things. As it is, I do validation both for the >> >credit and because we have a pretty hefty step 1 page right now. Lora >> >was talking about not validating for credits, and that is what I was >> >responding to. (smile) >> > >> >Monica Willyard >> > >> >On Monday 9/25/2006 11:34 PM, you wrote: >> > >Monica, >> > > >> > >One gets so much more monetary credit for scanning, and all you'd >> > >really have to do after a scan is to check the copyright page and put >> > >the right info in the submission form; go through the book and be >> > >sure no pages have been omitted (we've all done that, and >> > >double-scanned a page, too); and delete junk characters; and run a >> > >spell-check. So you validate because you don't have a scanner? I >> > >think some can be had relatively inexpensively and it might pay you n >> > >the >>long run. >> > > >> > >I don't blame you at all for validating for the credits. I probably >> > >would work for the credits, too. I admit that in my lifetime I have >> > >volunteered my time and efforts rather than donated money, not only >> > >because I feel I'm being useful but because I don't have that much >> > >money to donate. smile >> > > >> > >Cindy >> > >> > 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. >> >> 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. > >

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