I would like to add my support to what Elizabeth has written here. Telling someone to continue renewing books over and over again is a band-aid solution that doesn't truly address the issue. It works for books like romances that might just need a page or two to be rescanned. Validating textbooks with charts and diagrams is a very different process. Some of you who have never taken on a textbook have no idea just how much work and attention to detail textbooks require. It's easy to get burned out on doing them if you don't pace yourself and give yourself pleasure reading and down time. Having a reminder to renew books does help quite a lot. However, I had spent several weeks fixing up charts in a textbook only to have it expire when I went to the hospital last spring. When I returned, I found that someone had uploaded it with its many errors intact into the collection. If I'd been able to somehow put that book on a list with comments about its problems, or even just have been able to leave comments for the next validater, Bookshare might have a much better copy of that book now. As it is, it's the student using that book who loses most because the charts contain data he or she will need to understand the text in the book. It's been my experience that people don't usually do BSO scans of textbooks since they are expensive to buy and become outdated rather quickly when the publisher releases a new edition. That makes thorough validation even more critical since it gives us just one shot to get things right. With the textbook I mentioned in this post, there is no way I'd rescan it. It's 800 some odd pages and costs $130 new or $60 used. I have no personal interest in its topic, and I suspect that is a sentiment shared by many people who consider the idea of doing a BSO for our fair rated textbooks. Elizabeth's idea is a good one because it would act as a quality control to help difficult validations get through the system in the best shape possible.
Monica Willyard E. wrote:
I suggest that the list be used for only limited reasons. Anyone "kicking back" a book to the list must meet one of the criteria.Criteria may include things like getting missing pages from another volunteer getting explanation of diagrams from another volunteer working on charts in book and need a week's breakThe list will allow people who have taken on several difficult books to validate something short or easy or diverting and come back refreshed.The list will protect books which truly are being worked on. Before the five book limit, the list was not necessary.The five book limit has been great at curbing many situations and streamlining validating in many ways.The five book limit is a limit in a way which will be addressed by the "not quite ready for prime time list".Some of us are validating several large textbooks because the submitters know we can fix dates by actually reading most of the book.Date fixing includes 13 22 equals 1322 153O equals 1530and others. I have worked out all kinds of find searches for dates but still it means reading much of a book. I know a solution is to take on less. I am suggesting the list as another alternative.The act of validating is easy enough and I can do it reading something short for leisure. It is making sure my books can stay mine while I take a break which concerns me. The list is just a way of perhaps helping burn out among validators.E.
