[bksvol-discuss] Re: New Marissa's List

  • From: "Jake Brownell" <jabrown@xxxxxxxxx>
  • To: <bksvol-discuss@xxxxxxxxxxxxx>
  • Date: Mon, 7 Aug 2006 00:36:52 -0500

Hi Cindy,

The rejection portion of the latest Marissa's List does not tell when the books were rejected. What I can tell you is that since the last list, this portion has more than doubled, and so it's pretty safe to say that a good deal of the books were added in the last month.

This does not support that these books were not valid rejections. The books could have had many things wrong with them, including, but not limited to, missing pages/a huge chunk of the book, missing title/author, missing copyright information, missing page breaks, missing whole parts of pages, or overall poor quality, or any number of these combined.

And so, this does not support that someone should have taken the time to fix these books. It means that something was wrong enough with the book that a volunteer felt justified in recommending it for rejection.

In fact, here's a counter arguement to why people should not fix up poor scans, unless there are special circumstances. Examples of special circumstances could be that the book is rare or the type of book would require a good deal of fixing no matter the scanner.

Consider, Cindy, the number of books you currently have out for validation, and how long you have had them. If the book isn't special and you have had it for more than, say, 6 weeks, then you've got too many books/projects, or the book is in such bad condition it is taking you that long to fix it, which means your time could better be spent. You let your books expire on the step 1 page the other day and so below I have placed statistics about the 20 books you have out for validation, 14 of which you have had since 2005! 75% (15) of these books you've held for more than 6 months!

To put the number of books you have out for validation into perspective, the latest Marissa's List shows that in total there are 197 books checked out for validation. You have 20. That means you alone have more than 10% of the books currently checked out.

It's common for volunteers to check out a few books at a time, even, encouraged if the volunteer is interested in the books and is going to do a good job. However, Gerald and I have brainstormed about what the maximum number of books (under normal circumstances) a volunteer should be allowed to check out simultaneously. The number we've come up with...5. We feel that more than this number is too big a split of a volunteer's resources, i.e. you've bitten off a lot at once, and it seems unfair to deny other volunteers the right to work on, (accept or reject) that book.

Cindy, you do a great deal for the BookShare.org community and you know that we all appreciate every effort you put into our library.

But, please find something to do with all of the books you have, and realize that not every book is worth saving. For instance, if you had rejected the books you have been holding since 2005, some of them may have been rescanned and in the collection by now.

Please do not take any more books to work on until you finish at minimum half to three quarters of your current projects, if not all of them.

Thanks,
Jake
First Edit Date Title
10/25/2005 A Prince of Sinners
11/3/2005 Hope was Here
11/10/2005 Transit of Venus: Voyages in the Pacific
11/18/2005 Tammy, Tell Me True
11/27/2005 King Bongo: A novel of Havana
12/7/2005 Out of the Red Shadow
12/7/2005 Man From Nowhare - Bitter Grass
12/7/2005 Never Say Never
12/7/2005 The Language of Blood
12/7/2005 The Dead Suffered Too
12/7/2005 The Doomsday Marshal and the Hanging Judge
12/7/2005 The Establishment
12/7/2005 The One Minute Millionaire: The Enlightened Way to Wealth
12/7/2005 Holly
1/14/2006 The Defection of A. J. Lewinter
5/12/2006 All is Vanity
5/25/2006 Mao's Last Dancer
6/19/2006 Oklahoma Sweetheart
6/30/2006 The Memoirs of Cleopatra *hold for Cindy*
7/12/2006 Blood Royal *hold for Cindy*

----- Original Message ----- From: "Cindy" <popularplace@xxxxxxxxx>
To: <bksvol-discuss@xxxxxxxxxxxxx>
Sent: Friday, August 04, 2006 7:22 PM
Subject: [bksvol-discuss] Re: New Marissa's List


Wow!! So many new books have been submitted from, I
assume, commercial sources, and you volunteers have
been so busy (I say you, because I'm slower and still
working on one long but fascinating one) that there
are  approcxiamtely 275 books waiting for admin
approval. If only someone could help Gustavo with that
project.

And 350 awaiting validation.

And, for those of you who like statistics, 143 on the
rejected list. Some of those look really good; the one
on the top would be good to have for Christmas. Mabe
some of you who like to scan could scan some of the
rejected books. Jake, is there any way to tell when
those books were rejected? If they were rejected some
time ago and haven't been rescanned, then that would
support my argument that having someone like me
validate and fix it, even if it takes a while, would
be better than outright rejection.

Cindy

--- Jake Brownell <jabrown@xxxxxxxxx> wrote:

Hi all,

Gustavo kindly sent me a copy of today's new
Marissa's List, which is available at:

http://www.jbrownell.com/bks/ml.asp

Enjoy,
Jake


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