[bksvol-discuss] Re: page breaks

  • From: Stephen Baum <steve@xxxxxxxxxxxxxxx>
  • To: bksvol-discuss@xxxxxxxxxxxxx
  • Date: Tue, 18 Oct 2005 10:59:42 -0400

Hi Sarah.

Considering that Gustavo, from BookShare, and I, from Kurzweil, are doing a presentation together, its pretty likely we will see each other. In fact, we tend to have at least one dinner together at those shows that we both attend.

I have looked over the contents of a DAISY document that produces bookmarks in K1000 for page tags, and one that doesn't. The difference is that the first represents the page tags as navigation points in the "navmap", while the second represents them as navigation points in the "navlist". I'm sure that isn't exactly crystal clear, but a "navmap" contains primary navigation points, while a "navlist" contains secondary navigation points. Although it has broken some functionality that people seem to depend on, I'm not convinced that the new approach is wrong - in fact, DAISY documentation suggests that page numbers belong in the "navlist".

Kurzweil 1000 and Kurzweil 3000 ignore the "navlist" when they open DAISY documents. We can see what we can do to recognize that a particular navigation point is actually a page number. Perhaps we can come up with something.

I've always considered having the page numbers come up as bookmarks in K1000 something of a hack. They belong in our user page number feature, not in bookmarks. However, there is one rather nasty rub. DAISY page numbers aren't necessarily simple numbers. Its OK in DAISY for the tag of a page number to be "iii", or "A-17", or just about anything else. K1000 page numbers are just numbers (except for the "preliminary page" indicator). So its not easy to squeeze page numbers from DAISY documents into a K1000 document.

Stephen

At 12:17 AM 10/18/2005, you wrote:
Thank you for your message.

You're absolutely right that even the books with incorrect paging should still have DAISY page tags, and those page tags should show up in Kurzweil as bookmarks. I am going to the Closing the Gap conference on Saturday and I hope to talk to someone from bookshare about the problem. Following that discussion, I hope to go to the Kurzweil booth and talk to someone there about what I was told at the bookshare booth. Of course thinking that will actually happen in that order, and that I will actually accomplish something by it is wildly optimistic, which is not a word that can usually be used to describe me. ;-)

There is absolutely no way I would consider the possibility of someone from the bookshare booth actually talking directly to someone from the Kurzweil booth about the issue raised, and especially not with me present. :-)

I can but make a nuisance of myself and hope someone wants to shut me up by addressing the problem. LOL And maybe I won't be the only person being a pest about the problem.


Sarah Van Oosterwijck Assistive Technology Trainer http://home.earthlink.net/~netentity

----- Original Message ----- From: "Jake Brownell" <jabrown@xxxxxxxxx>
To: <bksvol-discuss@xxxxxxxxxxxxx>
Sent: Friday, October 14, 2005 10:46 PM
Subject: [bksvol-discuss] Re: page breaks


Hi Sarah,
Just wanted to take the opportunity to say thanks for your message. You expressed a lot of my concerns and certainly did it better than I could have. As for Kurzweil not picking up the page numbers as bookmarks, shouldn't all BookShare books have them? Even where the stripper was unable to pick up on the pattern of pages and just started with one as the beginning of the book, they should still be there right? If this is true sounds like Kurzweil and BookShare need to knock some heads together.


Jake
----- Original Message ----- From: "Sarah Van Oosterwijck" <curiousentity@xxxxxxxxxxxxx>
To: <bksvol-discuss@xxxxxxxxxxxxx>
Sent: Friday, October 14, 2005 10:51 AM
Subject: [bksvol-discuss] Re: page breaks



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

----- Original Message ----- From: "Mike Pietruk" <pietruk@xxxxxxxxx>
To: <bksvol-discuss@xxxxxxxxxxxxx>
Sent: Friday, October 14, 2005 7:12 AM
Subject: [bksvol-discuss] Re: page breaks


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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