Good point, Cindy R.! One thing I'd like to see: having the scanner state how many pages are in the book when it gets uploaded to step one for validation.
I need that information to to figure out how much time a book may take to validate. Several of our scanners do this already, and it really really helps me decide if I have the time to tackle a book. If it's something I'm not thrilled about, but around 150 pages, I'll grab it. A book that I'm really interested in I'll take even if it's 500 pages or more, but knowing the number of pages helps me estimate how much time it will take me to read through it.
I don't think either that you can be too obsessive or picky when validating because it makes such a huge difference to the reader. Why should we as readers have to feel satisfied with a second rate reading experience? smile.
Judy s. Cindy Reece wrote:
I'm a new voluteer and the first thing I would have liked to know was how much time it takes to validate a book. I couldn't decide if I was too picky because it would take up to 4 hours to do Hanna Montana! I've gotten a little faster now. Especially when the manual only says to make sure all the pages are there. I think one thing this discussion has shown me is you can't be too picky (or is that obsessive?) When I became a new voluteer I asked for a mentor. Maybe as new people sign up we could have a list of people on a greeting committee to help them through the first few books. I know it doesn't take long to catch on. The other Cindy R.------------------------------------------------------------------------ From: lavendar@xxxxxxxxx To: bksvol-discuss@xxxxxxxxxxxxx Subject: [bksvol-discuss] Re: How to be a black belt validater? Date: Mon, 10 Nov 2008 14:38:15 -0500Actually, Monica, you make a good point about reading the entire book through. the manual doesn't say that you must do this as a validater. I must say, that the times that I did just even skim through the book, and sort of "zoned out" while "reading", I missed some critical things..so..yeah, reading each and every book you validate all the way through is a good place to start! Caitlyn -----Original Message----- *From:* bksvol-discuss-bounce@xxxxxxxxxxxxx [mailto:bksvol-discuss-bounce@xxxxxxxxxxxxx] *On Behalf Of *Monica Willyard*Sent:* Monday, November 10, 2008 12:13 PM *To:* bksvol-discuss@xxxxxxxxxxxxx *Subject:* [bksvol-discuss] Re: How to be a black belt validater?Caitlyn, I love your idea. (smile) That’s a great way to help improve the quality of our books. I think we have a lot of highly-skilled validaters around here who could lend a hand. I will just ask for one thing to be included, and it seems almost unnecessarily obvious. It’s the one thing that a person can do to build a great foundation. Please, please read the book all the way through. You can do a lot with a spellchecker and removing headers, but reading the book itself is the way you can catch scannos like the word car for cat or die for the. It’s also how you can be certain that all pages are present since scanners don’t always handle page numbers well. There are literally thousands of books in the collection that were scanned pretty well but that needed someone to read through and remove scannos. I know Bookshare doesn’t require people to read a book and that the validation process was different five years ago. Where we are now in 2008 is a new landscape for volunteers. Since validaters get the same amount of credit submitters do, I think it’s fair for validaters to read the book just as submitters are required to scan the whole book.Ok, I’ve said my piece. I’m going back to my scanner now. (smile) Now where did I put my coffee cup?Monica Willyard ------------------------------------------------------------------------Color coding for safety: Windows Live Hotmail alerts you to suspicious email. Sign up today. <http://windowslive.com/Explore/Hotmail?ocid=TXT_TAGLM_WL_hotmail_acq_safety_112008>
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.
