[bksvol-discuss] Re: The job of a proofreader is...

  • From: Chanelle Allen <chanellem.allen@xxxxxxxxx>
  • To: "bksvol-discuss@xxxxxxxxxxxxx" <bksvol-discuss@xxxxxxxxxxxxx>
  • Date: Fri, 20 Apr 2012 10:48:10 -0500

I submitted a quality report on a book several months ago and was pleasantly 
surprised to receive a notice that the book had been rescanned. Since I have 
finally reactivated my membership, I will look at the book again. I appreciate 
that Bookshare volunteers and staff do everything possible to ensure excellent 
quality books. Because of my experiences reading Bookshare books, I am more 
committed to doing my best as a proofreader. Has the issue of dealing with 
negligent proofreaders been addressed?

Chanelle

Sent from my iPhone

On Apr 20, 2012, at 9:59, Roger Loran Bailey <rogerbailey81@xxxxxxx> wrote:

> Let me reply to my own post so that I can add something. Like I said, it is 
> rated as only good anyway and was added more than ten years ago when 
> Bookshare standards were much lower, but also remember that back then fair 
> quality books were also permitted. Have you ever tried reading one of those 
> fair rated books? Fair is not the correct word as far as I am concerned. The 
> word should be awful. Those fair quality books are virtually unreadable. They 
> are gradually disappearing from the collection, but try this. Go to the 
> advanced search and specify a category and specify the quality of fair. You 
> should get at least a few results and they were all added back in the 
> beginning days of Bookshare. Then try downloading and reading some. If you 
> are lucky you just might be able to read enough of it to get interested and 
> then when you reach a very important part you will encounter only garble. 
> That is if you get lucky. The more probable outcome is that you will 
> encounter garble from the start and find it all through. I think the quality 
> report system was introduced to actually gradually get rid of those kind of 
> books in the collection. It is working too, but it is, indeed, gradual. 
> Someone has to make a quality report first. Then Bookshare has to acquire a 
> copy of the book and scan it. Then it has to be outsourced to be proofed. 
> Obviously the more quality reports that come in the slower the process will 
> be. Do make those quality reports, though, and do consider submitting a BSO 
> if you can.
> 
> On 4/20/2012 10:31 AM, Roger Loran Bailey wrote:
>> I just took a look at its metadata page and I see that it is rated as only 
>> good anyway and that it was added on January 28 of 2002. Bookshare's 
>> standards were not as high then and based on what I have seen of the books 
>> that were added at that time such quality is pretty typical. There was a 
>> post here once that described what the duties of the proofreaders were back 
>> then. I don't recall exactly what it said, but I think it wasn't really much 
>> more than checking that a title page and a copyright page were present. It 
>> was not even called proofreading then. It was called validating and, indeed, 
>> I don't think that real proofreading was expected. Making the quality report 
>> is certainly the correct thing to do and based on the results that I have 
>> seen from making my own quality reports on similar older books in the 
>> collection it will probably be rescanned and sent to an outsourcer for 
>> proofing.
>> 
>> On 4/20/2012 8:14 AM, Ann Parsons wrote:
>>> Hi all,
>>> 
>>> I'm writing because I just sent off a quality report about a book I'm 
>>> reading.  Oh, I'm going to finish the book, it's part of a series I'm 
>>> reading, but I have a really hard and knotty question to ask volunteers.
>>> 
>>> Here it is, folks.  Is it the job of a proofer to actually *read* a book, 
>>> or can a proofer get away with checking title and so on, and then just 
>>> pushing the book through?
>>> 
>>> If you answered that you thought you could get away with just checking 
>>> metadata, you'd be wrong, wrong three times over.  This book I'm reading, 
>>> Divided Allegiance by Elizabeth Moon, has a wonderful title page and front 
>>> piece.  Then, I started actually *reading* the blessed thing.  Well, I 
>>> wasn't reading it, my DTBM was.  Anyway, this book's quality was only good. 
>>>  There were a million scanos including the mangling of the main character's 
>>> name.  Do you know how aggravating it can be when your main character, 
>>> mentioned about ten times per page has her name mangled five out of those 
>>> ten times?  Scannos like 'ff' for 'if' and garbage chars at the end of 
>>> pages.
>>> 
>>> <frowning darkly>  There is no excuse for this kind of sloppiness.  Why do 
>>> you think it takes me weeks to proof a book?  It's because I actually read 
>>> every, single, word in the whole blessed book!  I have allowed a book to be 
>>> sent up after reading half or  so of it, but only once.  That was because 
>>> the scanner was known to me, the book I had read so far had been aeror 
>>> free, and I knew that the quality would be the same throughout!   If I 
>>> proof, I read.  All this stuff could have been easily fixed! <grrrrr>  
>>> Sorry for ranting guys, but I devoutly hope that my rant has stopped any 
>>> lazy proofers in their tracks and caused them to reexamine their work.
>>> 
>>> Ann P.
>>> 
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