[bookshare-discuss] Re: Handling Publisher Quality Books
- From: "Cindy Wentz" <cindy2u@xxxxxxxxxxx>
- To: <bookshare-discuss@xxxxxxxxxxxxx>
- Date: Tue, 26 Feb 2008 21:07:03 -0500
Thank you for this excellent and informative post. This in combination
with listening to Jim Fruchterman on 'Main Menu' on ACB Radio will allow me
to once again go into deep lurk mode and save a little more time for reading
books rather than email.
Cindy----- Original Message -----
From: Monica Willyard
To: bookshare-discuss@xxxxxxxxxxxxx
Sent: Monday, February 25, 2008 9:57 PM
Subject: [bookshare-discuss] Handling Publisher Quality Books
Hi, Cindy and Lana. It looks like Allison is going to work on these books.
Ultimately, the issue is in creating the technology to make this work
smoothly, and we're going to have some growing pains during the process.
Re-programming a site like Bookshare with its back-end tools isn't an all at
once process like buying a modular home. It's more like watching a house
being built from the ground up or like a butterfly struggling out of its
caccoon. If you go to the site where a house is being built, there is a time
when you see nothing but a frame of boards and concrete with nothing to
indicate the warm, comfortable rooms that will eventually fill out the empty
space. That is where the Bookshare site is right now. They can't implement
new code as quickly as they'd like because they have to make sure that what
they're doing is compatible with the old code so we don't lose access to the
Bookshare site completely. They are radically rebuilding the Bookshare tools
to give us better quality, and they're making sure that the rebuilding
process doesn't affect our ability to access books in the collection.
They've turned on the feed for publisher quality books so they can begin
building the infrastructure to support the feature. That includes automating
retrieval of book data and conversion to the brf format. They also know that
since they have the books in hand, some of us would prefer to have access to
the books without a synopsis than to have no access at all. For right now,
their choices are a little scarce until they can write more code to support
these books. I'm very glad that Allison is going to take on writing a
synopsis for each book.
Bookshare has hired several new developers during the past year, and these
people are working steadily to build on the framework that exists now. What
they're doing is both ambitious and audacious. No one has built anything
like the new Bookshare that is being built. While they built our new home,
they need us to help them by using the skills we have to supplement what
they're doing. Lisa, Claire, Carrie, and the rest of the staff know we need
the synopsis for each book, and I believe them when they tell us that
they're working on getting the process going. After hearing about how some
of the original site was built, I don't envy the developers who are working
to moderrnize the code and integrate new features with it. John and Megan
are both really sharp people. They are the programmers I have actually
gotten to talk with. Both of them are enthusiastic about their work, and
they do understand that we want to be able to see what books are about just
like sighted people who go to a bookstore or library. I thihnk you'll see
some really cool changes within a month or two. If we do have a hurdle to
get past, we'll handle it because this list is made up of people who are
flexible and resilient. A year from now, we'll be joking about some of these
things and wondering why we got so worked up. (smile)
Monica Willyard
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