[bksvol-discuss] Re: The Broker--strengths and weaknesses
- From: Guido Corona <guidoc@xxxxxxxxxx>
- To: bksvol-discuss@xxxxxxxxxxxxx
- Date: Mon, 17 Jan 2005 08:13:58 -0600
Dr Cross, this is a very good point. The problem is that the Bookshare
automated header stripper is far too radical for its own good.
It removes both chapter headers and page headers completely, without even
leaving a virtual indicator of real page 1 in the book.
A kinder /gentler stripper can be implemented easily from a purely
technical point of view, as demonstrated by the 'carefully' option in
Kurzweil 1000 9.0. Even this stripper though is not perfect, because it
does not have an option to leave uncorrupted page numbers intact while
removing redundant portions of page headers.
I have already suggested to the Bookshare staff that while page numbers
should probably be removed from the raw body text, they should be
inserted into page header tags, so that a Daisy reader can voice them or
ignore them at will. Furthermore, there should be a mechanism for
volunteers to tag manually page 1 in the book for best sequencing by the
Bookshare system. If page one were taggable, the Bookshare system can
then easily create page header tags without any need to preserve original
page headers.
Needless to say, the stripper should not remove chapter and section
headers alltogether, but smarts should be implemented to create the
appropriate tags around them.
In the meantime, one way to get around the problem is to split chapter
headers on two consecutive lines to defeat the stripper.
For those books where the physical access to page numbers is important,
omitting a blank line between the page number and the body text will also
defeat the stripper.
Guido Dante Corona
IBM Accessibility Center, Austin Tx.
Research Division,
Phone: 512. 838. 9735.
Email: guidoc@xxxxxxxxxxx
Web: http://www.ibm.com/able
"Kenneth A. Cross" <crossk@xxxxxxxxxxxx>
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01/17/2005 03:31 AM
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[bksvol-discuss] The Broker--strengths and weaknesses
Congratulations to the BookShare staff for the timely availability of THE
BROKER, John Hrisham's newest book. For the person who reads for
pleasure, it is great and most enjoyable. But the determination to
provide the book without pagination is a real problem to some users.
For example, since I was once an English teacher, I spend a fair amount of
time either in book discussion groups or running such groups for young
adults. Since the page numbers have been carefully removed, I can't ask
the members of my groups to consult specific pages. And since there are
no chapter headings, I can't use those either--I don't even know without
great effort whether they occur.
For the same reasons, I can't write or check out the writing of others if
they have provided footnotes about the book. I can't even check the print
book quickly to check possible errors in the copy. For example, I am
pasting here a sentence which I think is in error.
Everyone sw r allowed hard and waited for the words to escape through the
heating vents. Now if I had any idea what page of the print book that was
from, I could check it almost instantly, but all I know is that was on
page 17 of the BookShare copy.
What makes this disturbing to me is that, in the scanning process, the
page numbers were there. They had to be carefully eliminated. And that
careful elimination means that the book has some real limitations outside
general reading.
Paradoxically, the initial submissions of books are probably much more
useful to someone doing work in teaching and research than are the books
which have gone through an editing process. Is there not some way we
could preserve information and, simultaneously, not plague the general
reader?
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