[bksvol-discuss] Re: synopses, quality, etc.

  • From: "Sarah Van Oosterwijck" <curiousentity@xxxxxxxxxxxxx>
  • To: <bksvol-discuss@xxxxxxxxxxxxx>
  • Date: Thu, 29 Apr 2004 13:06:22 -0500

Excellent idea.

----- Original Message -----
From: "Guido Corona" <guidoc@xxxxxxxxxx>
To: <bksvol-discuss@xxxxxxxxxxxxx>
Sent: Thursday, April 29, 2004 11:52 AM
Subject: [bksvol-discuss] Re: synopses, quality, etc.


> Assuming a redesign of the database is feasible, or even advisable,  one
> possible way to handle a single synopsis is to have only a long synopsis,
> which is viewed in its entirety when displaying the book record.  The same
> long synopsis would instead be displayed in a truncated form on multiple
> book listings pages.
>
> This would simplify the life of volunteers,  while still presenting
> subscribers with a highly usable  and flexible interface.
>
> Guido
>
> Guido
>
>
> Guido D. Corona
> IBM Accessibility Center,  Austin Tx.
> IBM Research,
> Phone:  (512) 838-9735
> Email: guidoc@xxxxxxxxxxx
>
> Visit my weekly Accessibility WebLog at:
> http://www-3.ibm.com/able/weblog/corona_weblog.html
>
>
>
>
>
> "Sarah Van Oosterwijck" <curiousentity@xxxxxxxxxxxxx>
> Sent by: bksvol-discuss-bounce@xxxxxxxxxxxxx
> 04/29/2004 11:08 AM
> Please respond to
> bksvol-discuss
>
>
> To
> <bksvol-discuss@xxxxxxxxxxxxx>
> cc
>
> Subject
> [bksvol-discuss] Re: synopses, quality, etc.
>
>
>
>
>
>
> Personally, I like having the ability to see a long synopsis when it is
> available, so I would be disappointed to see it illiminated.  I just
> wanted
> to give my opinion in this unofficial and unsolicited E-mail poll. :-)
>
> Thank you for your answer about the textarea tag.  Some html guides online
> must be incorrect, which I suspected since my tests with it didn't work.
> Could you tell me if there is a reason why textarea is used instead of
> input
> when input would allow for easy limiting of the number of characters
> entered? I know there may very well be a good reason for the other tag
> that
> I just don't know about. I know it will allow 200 characters as a length,
> because I tested that.
> Thanks.
>
> Sarah Van Oosterwijck
> curious entity at earthlink dot net
>
>
> ----- Original Message -----
> From: "Jesse Fahnestock" <Jesse.F@xxxxxxxxxxxx>
> To: <bksvol-discuss@xxxxxxxxxxxxx>
> Sent: Thursday, April 29, 2004 9:06 AM
> Subject: [bksvol-discuss] synopses, quality, etc.
>
>
> > Hey all -- sorry I've been offline for some lively conversation! I'll
> try
> to weigh in where necessary. As always, please feel free to email me
> offline
> about any of these issues.
> >
> > 1. Synopses: Just to be clear, while I understand the desire for
> synopses,
> books missing one or both forms of synopsis should not be rejected on that
> basis, by volunteer or administrator. I have no problem with the urging
> and
> cajoling of our fellow volunteers to include them, but making them
> mandatory
> would simply be prohibitive and discouraging for some of our submitters,
> especially those who submit in bulk.
> >
> > 2. The synopsis bug: There are a few cases where the synopsis being
> entered will not stick: namely, books that have previously been submitted
> and approved, whether or not they have since been withdrawn. In those
> cases
> the original synopses will stick. Validators are able to change the
> synopses
> on brand new submissions, however, so please don't be discouraged! The
> vast
> majority of your synopses are sticking. We're working on fixing it for
> books
> that have already existed on Bookshare.org, but it's been a tricky one.
> >
> > 3. Synopses from other sources: please do not copy synopses from
> Amazon.com or any other source, unless it is the same copy found on the
> book
> jacket. That is copyrighted material, and while it is "quotable" in a news
> context (like Alison's newsletter) it should not be used as the synopsis
> in
> our collection.
> >
> > 4. Site improvements: the categories issue is a long-standing one, and
> one
> we've spent a lot of time trying to plan for. While we do acknowledge the
> need for better category management, making changes would require a large
> amount of database work (not to mention likely manual recategorization),
> and, if it were not a completely robust solution, might need to be done
> over
> and over again. The full-scale answer is to change our metadata source
> entirely to something like what the library of congress uses. This change
> is
> probably a ways out still, but given our limited resources, it probably
> makes more sense to make that change once rather than try to take
> half-steps.
> >
> > The notification for users of rejection reasons is on the way, I'm told.
> Look for it in a rejection notice coming to you soon! (grin)
> >
> > The short synopsis field is a textarea field, and that does not accept
> the
> maxlength attribute. As Sara (I think) noted, fixing the length would
> require javascript, which is problematic for many users. I will float the
> idea for a single synopsis -- keep in mind that this will be displayed on
> the search results page, however, so it would still need to be pretty
> limited. You couldn't have a 100-word synopsis there.
> >
> > 5. Regarding text quality: I love the fact that this group has high
> standards -- I'm consistently amazed at the effort being put into the
> scans
> of others by our volunteers. But I'd encourage us to try to avoid
> accusatory
> messages when it comes to text quality. There are many mitigating factors,
> some of which have already been pointed out here, and we would be wrong to
> discourage anyone from submitting the books they want to share. So let's
> focus on ensuring the readability and legibility of what has been
> submitted,
> and of course encouraging our fellow scanners with tips and techniques as
> many of us already do.
> >
> >
> > ________________________
> >
> > Jesse Fahnestock
> > Collection Development Coordinator, Bookshare.org
> > www.bookshare.org
> >
> > A Project of The Benetech Initiative - Technology Serving Humanity
> > 480 S. California Ave., Suite 201
> > Palo Alto, CA 94306-1609  USA
> > (650)475-5440 x133
> > (650) 475-1066 FAX
> > jesse@xxxxxxxxxxxx
> > www.benetech.org
> >
>
>
>
>

Other related posts:

  1. Home
  2. bksvol-discuss
  3. Archive
  4. 04-2004