The way we have always been treating BRF files in the past was to upload
them back as BRF again. Unless there has been a recent policy change, I
would imagine this would still hold true. For those questioning why some
books have been submitted in BRF format, in the cases I'm aware of the
submitter usually would submit 2 copies, 1 in BRF and 1 in another
format. The other format ultimately became the RTF file which was turned
into the Daisy copy. The BRF copies were submitted to avoid translation
errors, and I suspect they are also back translated for a Daisy copy as well.
Initially, Bookshare was encouraging the Braille literate in this endeavor,
just as they originally encouraged submitting the ARK and KES files with
the image files. I think they have since realized that including the
images make the resulting files so large that most are either unwilling, or
unable, to work on them. The thought was that if OCR were to improve
significantly enough to make running them through the character recognition
phase again beneficial, the books wouldn't have to be rescanned. As far as
that goes, I've always been a doubting Thomas. Aside from questioning the
quality, settings, etc. of the original images, I just don't see it ever
happening, and it certainly takes up a great deal more of the system
resources to store these original files. Regarding the BRF files, I've
also always thought that if a BRF file copy is accepted for a book already
present in the library, the software should be setup to recognize the fact,
and not generate the other files. I.E. what happens now, if a RTF file is
accepted, the Daisy and BRF files are generated; while, if a BRF file is
accepted, an additional Daisy file is generated. If you want an example of
this, take a look at Bernard Cornwell's offerings. there are a couple of
titles that appear twice, and these are instances of where both RTF and BRF
copies were submitted. I think one of the titles was "Sharpe's Sword" but
I don't remember off the top of my head. One thing I seem to recall, is
that if the file was originally submitted as BRF, that listing will be
first on the book's download page, where otherwise the Daisy format will be
listed first.
Now that I think about the issue, it seems a bit like double dipping,
getting 2 submissions for the price of 1 scan.
A rather long winded explanation, and I did drift there a bit on the ARK
and KES issue, but there it is, and hopefully, some of this will even be right.
Just on one final side note, writing this made me think of my Great Uncle
when he was being interviewed by a reporter on his life's experiences. At
the end of the interview the reporter made the comment, "Mr. Miller you
have such a wonderful memory, how do you recall all these events?"
His response was, "well Go-- dam-- it, I don't remember all that well, if I
forget, I just sorta make it up as I go along!"
Dave
At 09:23 PM 12/14/2004, you wrote:
Marissa,
When a brf file is submitted to Bookshare does it have to be uploaded as an
rtf?
Kellie
