Mike,
In my experience the DAISY tags are rarely inaccurate. It is also possible
to check their accuracy by seeing if what you find in the table of contents
matches up with the DAISY tags. Remember that if page numbers are present
they are really what is grabbed and put in the tags. I am in the process
of investigating the fact that all recent books I have downloaded from
bookshare seem to have proper DAISY tagged page numbers, but those numbers
do not seem to appear as bookmarks in Kurzweil. I am wondering if
something changed in the bookshare system to account for this. I don't
believe it is a Kurzweil 10 bug because older books from bookshare that I
have downloaded for testing seem to have the bookmarks for page numbers. I
also asked someone to test one of the files I didn't find bookmarks in in
Kurzweil 9 and was told that the same problem exists in that version. I am
wondering who to write to about this issue. Ideally someone from bookshare
who knows about the system could tell me if something has changed, and if
something indeed has changed discuss it with Kurzweil so the issue can be
addressed either by Kurzweil or by bookshare.
I would really like page numbers to appear in the text in all formats, but
I am very irritated with people who purposely defete the current system by
putting junk before or after the page numbers. How is bookshare ever to
fix anything about their system, which they are working on, albeit slowly,
if people make sure the system fails? I'm sure this suggestion is not one
that would be approved, but if people really feel the need to cause the
page numbers to appear in the file, please use a method that does not
remove them from the DAISY tags. Insert an extra page number on the line
above the original number appearing in your scan of the book. This will
drive people reading the HTML file insane because they will get the page
number twice, but will at least cause the system to work properly, and
therefore, wil give bookshare a reason to continue their attempts to
satisfy everyone by redesigning the system.
Sarah Van Oosterwijck Assistive Technology Trainer http://home.earthlink.net/~netentity
Elizabeth
You are very much on target. It is sort of fascinating, and somewhat
ironic, that Janice is beating the bushes, so to speak, to reach the goal
of 10,000 paying customers by going after the student market which, of
course, could be a burgeoning market for BookShare.
The reality is that many Bookshare books are of little use beyond the
recreational reading market because of flaws.
Sure, the Daisy books may have hidden tags giving theoretical page
numbers; but without the actual numbers appearing somewhere, at least upon
occasion, the reader has no way of verifying just how close to reality
those digital tags are.
A lot of BookShare's seemingly lack of interaction with the outside volunteer community is a result of Benetech's decision, likely based on sound financial grounds, not to replace Marissa. That volunteer co-ordinator was the one who handled much of that interaction on an ongoing basis. With that role abandoned, much of that pipeline evaporated.
The other thing we need to remember, and that this is a reality check, is that Bookshare has multiple sources of book acquisition including collections contributed by institutions, inside volunteers, and us, the outside volunteers. We're that 3rd group; and just how significant our particular group happens to be in the grand scheme of things I cannot say. Hence, it is possible that the other sources of book acquisition and collection building are receiving greater attention and we do not know this from where we are sitting.
But getting back to Elizabeth's point, I too am very frustrated.
Mike
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