[bksvol-discuss] Re: Awesome - 151,663 Titles on Bookshare

  • From: Dasha Radford <dasha95@xxxxxxxxx>
  • To: "bksvol-discuss@xxxxxxxxxxxxx" <bksvol-discuss@xxxxxxxxxxxxx>
  • Date: Fri, 22 Jun 2012 21:18:54 -0400


Sent from my iPhone

On Jun 22, 2012, at 8:50 PM, Roger Loran Bailey <rogerbailey81@xxxxxxx> wrote:

> As a very poor Braille reader in the first place I do not read Bookshare 
> books in Braille and, no, I have never read British Braille. I would not 
> think that Bookshare books would be in British Braille even for the British 
> English books though. I don't know that, but it would seem to be something 
> that would be too much of an extra effort and possibly expense to have two 
> English Braille translators. I would expect that if you download a British 
> English book it would be in American Braille with just the punctuation and 
> spelling different as it would appear to a sighted person. Like I said, 
> though, I really do not know. Have you or anyone else here downloaded British 
> English books from Bookshare and found that not only the spelling but also 
> the standard of Braille was different?
> On 6/22/2012 8:23 PM, Dasha Radford wrote:
>> Ever tried reading British English braille? Now that will slow you down a 
>> little at least to start with. Particularly the rather strange way of doing 
>> punctuation. You will get used to it I did but it looks really strange at 
>> first.
>> 
>> Sent from my iPhone
>> 
>> On Jun 22, 2012, at 8:17 PM, Roger Loran Bailey <rogerbailey81@xxxxxxx> 
>> wrote:
>> 
>>> As someone who used to read books both in British and American English with 
>>> my eyes I can testify that there is no trouble switching from one to 
>>> another. The differences in spelling does stand out, but it doesn't slow 
>>> you down or interfere with comprehension.
>>> On 6/22/2012 6:02 PM, Dasha Radford wrote:
>>>> In the advanced search page there should be and all languages option or it 
>>>> may be called any in the languages box. I think part of differentiation 
>>>> may have to do with spelling and read the writing style. Yes it's true 
>>>> that if you can read one you can certainly read the other but the phrasing 
>>>> and slightly different spelling not to mention the particulars in printing 
>>>> are what make the differentiation necessary. However, I do feel that the 
>>>> search for the two at least in the advanced should be changed from US 
>>>> English and British English to just English. If you speak the English 
>>>> language and if you read with an assistive device such as your computer, 
>>>> notetaker, or phone using some kind of screen reading software or in the 
>>>> case of the phone read to go or something like it there should be 
>>>> absolutely no reason why you shouldn't be able to understand the writing. 
>>>> If you read the books with your eyes and you're not used to it there might 
>>>> be some trouble.
>>>> 
>>>> Sent from my iPhone
>>>> 
>>>> On Jun 22, 2012, at 4:15 PM, Roger Loran Bailey <rogerbailey81@xxxxxxx> 
>>>> wrote:
>>>> 
>>>>> It is interesting that when I click the search button without filling 
>>>>> anything in the search field I thought I was getting a list of every book 
>>>>> Bookshare has, but I only get 145,688 titles returned. I don't really 
>>>>> have a lot of reason to have a list of every single book in the 
>>>>> collection sitting right in front of me, but I thought that was a way to 
>>>>> find out how many books were in the collection. It is apparently not. I 
>>>>> think I see the reason for the discrepancy. I have my advanced search 
>>>>> settings set for as broad a search of the collection as possible and 
>>>>> assume that if I want it to be narrower I can narrow it for a specific 
>>>>> search when I do that specific search. The problem seems to be the 
>>>>> language. I have it set to search American English and I see no way to 
>>>>> search for more than one language at a time. The only reason I would have 
>>>>> to search for all languages at once is to see how many books are in the 
>>>>> collection, but that is now taken care of by this new counter featur
> e
>>  .
>>>>  However, it would really be nice if I could search for American English 
>>>> and British English at the same time. They are treated as separate 
>>>> languages though. I can see why the choice of specifying a language is 
>>>> there. There is no point in searching for books in a language that one 
>>>> cannot read. However, when it comes to British English and American 
>>>> English there really should not be anyone who can read one and not the 
>>>> other. I don't see why they are treated as different languages in the 
>>>> search feature. As long as they are, though, does anyone know how to 
>>>> search both at one time without having to do a different search for each 
>>>> language?
>>>>> On 6/22/2012 3:40 PM, Judy s. wrote:
>>>>>> I just looked at the new version of Bookshare's entry page on the 
>>>>>> website (http://www.bookshare.org). I love the new feature on the right 
>>>>>> hand side of the page that's a counter of how many books are in the 
>>>>>> collection.  As of today, there are 151,663 titles.  That is totally 
>>>>>> awesome.
>>>>>> 
>>>>>> As a sighted but disabled member, I'm also grateful for and thrilled by 
>>>>>> the number of publisher quality books that have entered the collection 
>>>>>> in the last 18 months with the original illustrations intact.  I haven't 
>>>>>> read a book where I can look at the illustrations for over 20 years.  
>>>>>> Way to go, Bookshare!  I'm psyched about the POET project to get 
>>>>>> illustrations described. It gives me hope that eventually everyone can 
>>>>>> have access to both illustrations and good descriptions of the 
>>>>>> illustrations in the future.
>>>>>> 
>>>>>> Judy s.
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