Yes, I've been here since the days of beta testing back in 2001 as well. I had forgotten about the first and last 1000 words, until Shelley's post, and how sometimes it wasn't all that meaningful if there was a lot of front matter and an index or something. My recollection is when they went to a Step 1 page the highest percentage of books were text files, so that's a major change. We were also dealing with mass contributions of books individual users had scanned for their own collections, so there would be an influx of 200 or 300 books at a clip. I think the technique was to keep the queue of books awaiting the title, author, copyright check at around 600. So when the numbers of books awaiting attention started getting low, and we just felt cocky about our progress, bang all of the sudden another 500 or 600 books. The volunteer credit system didn't come about until Bookshare went public, and the $2.50 for validating is a significant and wise change, as we've shifted from the early days where quantity was important to the emphasis on quality today. Another difference was that initially, the stated preference for file formats in submissions was for Ark and Kes, hopefully with the images as well. Today, it is of course Rtf that is preferred. One change I remember suggesting back in the days of beta testing, and which I still would like to see, is that the category "Literature and Fiction" lose the literature part. It's always been my view that all fiction is literature, but not all literature is fiction. Hopefully however, we will get all new categories and book records with the new make over of the system in the not to distant future. It would be nice to see some type of library service software that would give us the categories, synopsis, etc., etc. right out of the box for most books, so that having the validator write them would be the exception rather than the rule.
Dave, who has managed to get a bit off topic. To unsubscribe from this list send a blank Email to bksvol-discuss-request@xxxxxxxxxxxxx put the word 'unsubscribe' by itself in the subject line. To get a list of available commands, put the word 'help' by itself in the subject line.
