[bksvol-discuss] Re: Requirements for acceptance -- the bottom line

  • From: "Pratik Patel" <pratikp1@xxxxxxxxx>
  • To: <bksvol-discuss@xxxxxxxxxxxxx>
  • Date: Sat, 14 Aug 2004 18:47:23 -0400

Marry,

I'd like to suggest that the standards that Jesse outlines are mainly
suggested by "perceived" business reasons.  Many of us don't agree with
these standards but it seems as if Bookshare has chosen to use the number of
books as a marketting tool.  While I can understand this reason, it is
difficult for those of us who see quality of books a key factor in having
this service.

Pratik


Pratik Patel
Managing Director
CUNYAssistive Technology Services
The City University of New York
     ppatel@xxxxxx
 
-----Original Message-----
From: bksvol-discuss-bounce@xxxxxxxxxxxxx
[mailto:bksvol-discuss-bounce@xxxxxxxxxxxxx] On Behalf Of Mary Otten
Sent: Friday, August 13, 2004 8:03 PM
To: bksvol-discuss@xxxxxxxxxxxxx
Subject: [bksvol-discuss] Re: Requirements for acceptance -- the bottom line

Ah yes. the notion of what is readable is the rub in all of this. Richard, I
love your idea about the volunteers and validating. 
But getting back to the idea of readable, consider, if you will, what would
happen to you if you turned in a term  paper, let's not even discuss a
thesis or disertation, just a garden variety term paper, and that paper had 
a bunch of cross-outs, scribblings, maybe a few coffee stains obscuring some
of the text. What are the chances, do you suppose, that you would get
anything but an F on that messy paper, 95 or even 98 percent of 
which might be perfectly readable? Why the heck should people pay for
anything less than the high end of "good" quality? Why shouldn't we as
submitters of materials take enough pride in what we submit to want to 
make it truly readable, i.e. containing some errors, but not so many that
the meaning of entire passages is  garbled? Obviously, if you have an old
book with a bad font that just won't ocr well, there's not a lot you can 
do. I've got such a book that I keep trying, hoping that the next iteration
of K1k will unlock the key to the crummy Soviet-era font and paper on which
the book was printed, so that I can actually enjoy reading the 
book myself and have a decent enough scan to post for anybody else crazy
enough to want to read this particular volume. <smile>  
Somebody posted a question asking about how the standards were decided upon,
or words to that effect. I too would be interested in that, and would like
to know if there is anything that we can do to revisit the issue 
and get them raised. The word "readable" means very different things to
different people, it would seem. Otherwise, we wouldn't have titles on the
system with portions that are totally garbled and not at all readable.
Mary




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