[bksvol-discuss] Re: For Patty-volunteer manual update??

  • From: "My Nickels Worth" <lavendar@xxxxxxxxx>
  • To: <bksvol-discuss@xxxxxxxxxxxxx>
  • Date: Tue, 11 Nov 2008 18:45:39 -0500

Well, my  name gets creatively changed/interpeted, too, so I know what it's
like!(smile)
 
Cait
 
-----Original Message-----
From: bksvol-discuss-bounce@xxxxxxxxxxxxx
[mailto:bksvol-discuss-bounce@xxxxxxxxxxxxx] On Behalf Of Pavi Mehta
Sent: Tuesday, November 11, 2008 2:13 PM
To: bksvol-discuss@xxxxxxxxxxxxx; bksvol-discuss@xxxxxxxxxxxxx
Subject: [bksvol-discuss] Re: For Patty-volunteer manual update??




Hi Caitlyn, Julie and others --

Have to say ever since moving from India to the United States I've enjoyed
all the different variations of my name that have blossomed into being.
Puffy, Puzzy, Pari, Pavri are just a few of them! Patty is a new one though
(smile). So thank you for that new nuance!

All good things,

Pavi

-----Original Message-----
From: bksvol-discuss-bounce@xxxxxxxxxxxxx on behalf of Julie & Miss Mercy
Sent: Tue 11/11/2008 11:08 AM
To: bksvol-discuss@xxxxxxxxxxxxx
Subject: [bksvol-discuss] Re: For Patty-volunteer manual update??

Hi, Caitlyn. Just so you know, it's Pavi, not Patty. <smile> Take care.
Julie Morales
Email and Windows Live/Windows Messenger:
inlovewithchrist@xxxxxxxxx
www.lljfm.net
 If you shop online anyway, consider starting here:
www.lljfm.net/shopping/
----- Original Message -----
From: "My Nickels Worth" <lavendar@xxxxxxxxx>
To: <bksvol-discuss@xxxxxxxxxxxxx>
Sent: Tuesday, November 11, 2008 1:50 PM
Subject: [bksvol-discuss] Re: For Patty-volunteer manual update??


Thanks, Patty!  This is a very good thing, indeed!

Caitlyn


-----Original Message-----
From: bksvol-discuss-bounce@xxxxxxxxxxxxx
[mailto:bksvol-discuss-bounce@xxxxxxxxxxxxx] On Behalf Of Pavi Mehta
Sent: Monday, November 10, 2008 3:39 PM
To: bksvol-discuss@xxxxxxxxxxxxx
Subject: [bksvol-discuss] Re: For Patty-volunteer manual update??


Hi Caitlyn,

We're looking to have an improved manual up with the new site by the end of
this year. The plan is to have this new version of the manual be a much more
dynamic document. Meaning  it will be engineered in such a way that we will
be able to edit it/update it as frequently as needed based on input and
suggestions from the volunteer community. Several discussions on this list
have helped point out fuzzy areas of the current manual that require
clarification, and documents like Mayrie's excellent "How to Be A B lack
Belt Validator" definitely go the extra mile in filling some of its gaps!
The idea is to compile all of this into one comprehensive manual that can be
continually refined as needed.

Warm regards,

Pavi

Pavi Mehta
Volunteer Coordinator, Bookshare

Benetech
480 S. California Ave., Suite 201
Palo Alto, CA 94306-1609 USA
Phone: +1 650 644-3459

pavim@xxxxxxxxxxxx

www.benetech.org

The Benetech Initiative - Technology Serving Humanity
A Nonprofit Organization




-----Original Message-----
From: bksvol-discuss-bounce@xxxxxxxxxxxxx
[mailto:bksvol-discuss-bounce@xxxxxxxxxxxxx] On Behalf Of My Nickels Worth
Sent: Monday, November 10, 2008 12:09 PM
To: bksvol-discuss@xxxxxxxxxxxxx
Subject: [bksvol-discuss] For Patty-volunteer manual update??

Hi Patty,

Do you know offhand when or if the volunteer manual will be
updated/improved?  One of the reasons that I started this thread, besides
wanting to make my own validation attempts better, is because personally, I
didn't find the current volunteer manual very helpful.  It just gives
bookshare's requirements for a book to be complete, but says that beyond
that, what you do as a validater is optional.  When all I've done was the
minimum, sometimes-well, lots of times, the book got returned for more
editing.  This wasn't a problem for me, but I want to do the best I can so
really good quality books get into the collection.  Things could be made
much clearer as to what's expected, what is icing, and what would be even
more icing for us who are realtively new at this.  Thanks to this list, I am
getting better with each book I do.

Caitlyn


-----Original Message-----
From: bksvol-discuss-bounce@xxxxxxxxxxxxx
[mailto:bksvol-discuss-bounce@xxxxxxxxxxxxx] On Behalf Of Pavi Mehta
Sent: Monday, November 10, 2008 2:06 PM
To: bksvol-discuss@xxxxxxxxxxxxx
Subject: [bksvol-discuss] Re: How to be a black belt validater?


Just a quick note to confirm what Christina shared.

As several of you have done before, if you don't have the submitter's email
address and have a question for them regarding a book you are validating, if
you are having trouble with the quality of their submissions or if you have
tips that you believe might help them better the quality of their scans
please feel free to send me an email and I will convey the same to the
appropriate submitter.

In terms of suggesting that validators read the entire book, I will make
note of that strong recommendation when we make revisions to the manual.

Thanks.

Pavi Mehta
Volunteer Coordinator, Bookshare

Benetech
480 S. California Ave., Suite 201
Palo Alto, CA 94306-1609 USA
Phone: +1 650 644-3459

pavim@xxxxxxxxxxxx

www.benetech.org

The Benetech Initiative - Technology Serving Humanity
A Nonprofit Organization



-----Original Message-----
From: bksvol-discuss-bounce@xxxxxxxxxxxxx
[mailto:bksvol-discuss-bounce@xxxxxxxxxxxxx] On Behalf Of Christina
Sent: Monday, November 10, 2008 10:39 AM
To: bksvol-discuss@xxxxxxxxxxxxx
Subject: [bksvol-discuss] Re: How to be a black belt validater?

Wow, Mayrie, I'm impressed.

I only have a little bit to add to that.

If you have any questions or need any pages rescanned, don't be afraid to
e-mail the submitter.  If the submitter didn't leave an e-mail address in
the comments, I believe you can e-mail Pavi and ask her to forward a message

for you.  I do mostly scanning now but, when I vallidated, my favorite
submitters were those who responded to my questions about their books.  Most

times, they keep the books until they're in the collection so any questions
can be quickly answered.

Something else I do, and this is a smaller thing, is to remove the spaces
between periods.  I do this when there is a period, space, period, space,
period.  I know JAWS reads this strangely and it's confusing so I just
replace that string with three periods in a row.

I will also reiterate how important it is to, not only read the book, but to

fix any mistakes that appear.  Yes, it takes more time and effort but it
also means that Bookshare gets a better quality book in the collection.

Synopses are also important.  Someone thought the book was good enough to
scan and someone else was interested enough to validate it.  Make the rest
of us want to read it too by adding a synopsis if there isn't one.  Even if
it's only a couple of sentenses, tell us what the book is about. Christina

----- Original Message -----
From: "Mayrie ReNae" <mayrierenae@xxxxxxxxx>
To: <bksvol-discuss@xxxxxxxxxxxxx>
Sent: Monday, November 10, 2008 12:40 PM
Subject: [bksvol-discuss] Re: How to be a black belt validater?


> Hi Cait!
>
> I posted this some time during the summer.  I think it deals with
> everything that you asked about.  It's long, so get ready!
>
> Before I paste my document below, I should say that Bookshare only has
> three requirements for books.  At least 90% of page breaks be present
> and properly located in the book. And title page and copyright
> information present and legible in the book.  All the rest is extra,
> but makes a book as perfect as I know how to make it.
>
> For all of you who saw my list of prevalidation instructions before,
> just hit the delete button now.
>
> See below.
>
> Mayrie
>
> COMPLETE PREVALIDATION PROCESS
>
> Okay, I did everything that I do to a book to prepare it for
> submission to Bookshare today short of reading it and documented the
> time it took.  The total minus actually reading the book was four and
> a half hours.
> One hour of that was spent in recognition that I did while eating and
> doing
> laundry.  Probably not necessary to count that, laugh.  But I included it
> anyway. So, here you go.
>
> The book had 292 pages including back cover, jacket flaps, preliminary
> pages, and, of course, the text of the book. I'll tell you in general
> what I did, and how long it took, then elaborate on the particular
> process. As has
> been said before, not everyone's process is the same, and there are
> probably
> at least three ways to achieve any given result.  This is what I did with
> this particular book, and my process might vary slightly from book to
> book,
> but here is what I did.
>
> I was using Kurzweil 1000 and one of the find and replace parts can
> easily be done in Microsoft word.  In Kurzweil the paragraph mark is
> represented by \n.  In word, that character is represented in the find
> and replace dialogue
> by ^p.  That might help folks validating using Word instead of Kurzweil.
>
> 1.
> Scan took 90 minutes
> I am using an opticBook 3600 scanner in single-page mode.  Scanner
> settings are as follows:
> Scan to images, automatic page orientation, gray-scale data, resolution at
> 300 DPI.
> Recognition settings were:
> Collumn identification disabled, one page recognized per scan, speckle
> removal disabled, Text quality is normal, partial collumns kept,
> suspicious
> regions kept, blank pages kept, recognition engine is FineReader 8.0,
> English will be recognized.
> Reading settings:
> Line endings will be ignored by the editor and tables will not be
> identified.
> I do not identify tables in straight fiction because junk sometimes scans
> as
> a table and is more of a pain to remove that way, more time consuming.  I
> have to know when I'll need table recognition so I can enable it.
> While scanning to images, I am always reading another book that I have run
> through this process to catch errors that ranked spelling didn't.
>
> 2.
> Recognize images took 1 hour.
> I do this when off eating, or doing laundry, or sleeping, something
> that doesn't require my computer to be doing anything else. This time
> may vary a lot depending upon how hardy your computer is, or how lame
> mine is.
>
> 3.
> Save the file under the name of the book. No time taken.
>
> 4.
> Clean up preliminary pages and confirm accurate page count: 15 minutes
> Label: [From The Back Cover] [From The Front Flap] [From The Back
> Flap][This Page is blank.] if any blank pages exist. Read through all
> preliminary pages
> and correct all scannos.
> Determine where the publisher thought page one should go and set an
> opperator defined page number there as page 1.
> Check that the last page in the book is numbered properly, telling you
> that
> you do not have any missing or duplicated pages. If the numbers don't
> match,
> either rescan and insert pages that you missed, or delete duplicated
> pages.
>
> 5.
> Remove headers, protect chapter headings, number and label any blank
> pages, get rid of end-of-line hyphens, and ensure that blank lines at
> the tops of pages will be preserved: 30 minutes.
> Protect all chapter headings by placing the page number followed by a
> blank
> line above the chapter heading.
> Remove all headers.  Do this only after protecting chapter headings, as
> very
> often the absence of a running header is the only indication of where a
> poorly scanned chapter heading should go.
> Page down through the document numbering and labeling all blank pages, and
> looking at the first word on each page to be sure that it is a complete
> word, and reconnect hyphenated words on one page.
> On each page beginning with a lower case letter, insert a space before
> that
> initial lower case letter.  This will help later.
>
> 6.
> Insert page numbers at the tops of all pages: 30 minutes. Delete all
> page numbers at the bottom of pages.  These don't always scan at
> all, so can't be counted upon to be there in the page numbering for daisy
> navigation, and especially in the html of the Bookshare final copy in the
> collection.
> Insert page numbers at the tops of all pages not already numbered above
> chapter headings followed by two carriage returns.
> Remove all extra blank lines by  using the find and replace dialogue as
> follows:
> In the "find box" insert \n\n\n\n\n\n (\n is the character string that
> will
> search for a carriage return.)
> In the replace box type\n\n Do this with the replace box remaining the
> same,
> but with five, then four, then three carriage return symbols each
> successive
> time in the "find" box.  This will get rid of all instances of more than
> one
> blank line between any blocks of text, or between page numbers and chapter
> headings or text on a page.
>
> 7.
> Remove any extra carriage returns inadvertently inserted by the OCR: 5
> minutes. This involves using the find and replace command 27 times.
> In the find box type " " (That is quotation mark followed by space
> followed
> by quotation mark."
> In the replace box type "\n"
> This will separate any paragraphs between speakers that might not have
> been
> separated by the OCR program. This does happen regularly.
> Now you are going to look for paragraph marks that shouldn't be there.
> You will do this with each letter of the alphabet in lower case.
> In the find box type\na (That is backslash followed immediately by the
> lower
> case letters n and a)
> In the replace box type space a that is hit the space bar followed
> immediately by the lower case letter a
> Replace all.
> Inserting a space at the tops of pages before each occurring lower case
> letter allows your carefully inserted blank lines between page numbers and
> text on the page to be preserved now.
>
> 8.
> Run ranked spelling: This took 20 minutes with this book.
> I started out with a 99.28% accuracy rating.
> Correct all scannos as ranked spelling or the spell checker finds
> them.
>
> 9.
> At this point I read the book and correct any errors that the spell
> checker or ranked spelling didn't find.  Hopefully I catch them all.
>
> 10.
> Convert to rtf and close the file. No time taken.
>
> 11.
> In Microsoft Word, Protect page numbers and page breaks, standardize
> fonts and margins, and convert em dashes to double hyphens: 5 minutes.
> (This is a generous estimate of how much time taken).
> Open the file in microsoft word.
> Standardize font and justify margins
> Make sure if validating someone else's submission that there are no smart
> quotes in the document, making sure that all quotation marks are standard
> quotes.  Open book tends to produce inaccurate quotation marks in my
> experience.
> Protect page numbers and page breaks by using the find and replace
> dialogue
> as follows:
> In the find box type: ^m
> In the replace type: ^p^m^p
> Replace all.
> Convert em dashes to double hyphens by using the find and replace dialogue
> as follows:
> In the find box type: ^+
> In the Replace box type: -- (That is two hyphens or two dashes, depending
> upon what you call that key to the right of the zero on the number row.)
> Save the file.
> NOW YOU'RE DONE!
>
>
> -----Original Message-----
> From: bksvol-discuss-bounce@xxxxxxxxxxxxx
> [mailto:bksvol-discuss-bounce@xxxxxxxxxxxxx] On Behalf Of My Nickels
> Worth
> Sent: Monday, November 10, 2008 8:46 AM
> To: bksvol-discuss@xxxxxxxxxxxxx
> Subject: [bksvol-discuss] How to be a black belt validater?
>
> Ok, I am wondering if we can put together a list of things a validater
> can/should do to make a book a really good one for the collection.
> This is a sort of companion thread for the older one about being a
> black belt submitter.. What are some things which a validater should
> always do, what are things which are extras, according to bookshare's
> requirements, but which could really improve the book for the
> collection?
>
> Maybe an experienced validater could give an example of what they do
> with
> a
> book from downloading it off step one to uploading it for publication..
>
> Thanks,
> Caitlyn
>
>
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