[bksvol-discuss] Re: question: Re: page breaks
- From: Pam Quinn <quinns@xxxxxxxxxxxxx>
- To: bksvol-discuss@xxxxxxxxxxxxx
- Date: Fri, 10 Dec 2004 13:29:22 -0600
Couldn't have said it better.
Pam
0, you wrote:
>I suppose this has been hashed and rehashed while I was off the list. But I
>can't let pass a categorical statement like the one Guido made that books with
>no page breaks must be rejected as unnavigable. Do I really
>need to navigate a novel? I want to read it, not necessarily know what page or
>paragraph or whatever I'm on right now. remember that people used talking
>books for literally decades and had absolutely no clue where
>they were with respect to the printed text, yet they got a whole lot of
>enjoyment out of those books and continue to do so to this day, despite the
>fact that they don't know what page they're on.
>I can certainly take a book that has no page breaks in it and navigate within
>it well enough to find my place when I want to pick up where I left off. If
>I'm reading with a portable device like the Bookport or courier, the
>reading will automatically pick up where I stopped, and I can make bookmarks.
>If reading with K1000, I can place some sort of symbol where I stopped and can
>search for it when I next open the file, unless, of course,
>I've changed the book into a kes in which case, K1k will pick up where I left
>off without my having to do anything. If I'm using Word to read, I can make a
>book mark or use some symbol that I can come back to. And
>that's pretty much all that's wanted when reading for pleasure, which is what
>generally happens with contemporary novels. If one wanted to make a case for
>rejection of books that have no page breaks when those
>books are apt to be used as reference, I could see the point. Although,
>frankly, I'd rather see even books of that nature accepted, but with some
>notation that let people know that breaks were absent. Then they
>could become like the fair rated ones, put on a list and be up for rescan by
>willing volunteers.
>I think the problem here is that BookShare is attempting to serve clients with
>vastly different requirements and tolerance levels. If I'm a student and get a
>book without accurate pagination, and I want to use that for
>reference, I'm out of luck and have to get that book from some other source.
>But if I'm not a student and just want to read, and BookShare has a policy
>that says, sorry, no books will be accepted without page breaks,
>then they've just deprived me of something that would be perfectly usable for
>my purposes and ensured that I have to go forth and scan or do without. I
>don't think there is a solution that is going to please everybody,
>just as there is no hard and fast line for text quality, below which, all
>books must be rejected due to unreadability. I hope, at this Monday meeting,
>there will be serious consideration given to a nuanced approach to this
>problem, rather than allowing an arbitrary decision that causes automatic
>rejection of anything that lacks the page breaks. Do that, and you should also
>reject anything that's not excellent text quality as well.
>Mary
>
>
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