Excellent points, Jamie. I like your idea of test proofs, and I'm going to expand on it in another message.
Melissa Smith On 5/8/2010 7:13 AM, Jamie Yates, CPhT wrote:
The important thing is education. People with sight have no idea how screen readers work, how braille displays work, or any other tools that people without sight or like Judy S., the software she uses, how that works either. We don't use it so we have no clue how to make the files work with all of the different types of readers that are available. Yes, the manual has become quite better at explaining things but there is so much to know and people with sight don't think about things like the auto correct feature in word or em dashes or fractions not translating into Braille. A good fast fact sheet would be a handy reference tool for new and experienced volunteers. That's where this list is so nice--a person can ask a question and get quick answer--but you also have to know the question to ask. Like in my first college calculus class, in sheer frustration I told my professor, I don't even know what I don't know so I don't know what to ask you for help with! I think volunteers for Bookshare may feel the same way. They think they're doing a great job (and they are just by being volunteers!) but in many cases they don't even know what they don't know. It would be great if new volunteers were given a file or a couple of files to "practice proofread" where maybe page breaks are missing and they have to insert them, fractions are symbols and they have to change them, em dashes are real and need to be a double dash, to give them the skills they need to become successful proofreaders before we actually turn them loose on real books.-- Jamie in Michigan Currently Reading: Balzac and the Little Chinese Seamstress by Dai SijieEarn cash for answering trivia questions every 3 hours: http://instantcashsweepstakes.com/invitations/ref_link/49497See everything I've read this year at: www.michiganrxtech.com/books.html <http://www.michiganrxtech.com/books.html>
