[bookshare-discuss] Re: Do these books get read before being submitted?
- From: "boomerdad" <boomerdad@xxxxxxxxxxxx>
- To: <bookshare-discuss@xxxxxxxxxxxxx>
- Date: Mon, 13 Sep 2004 12:10:59 -0700
Thanks. I saw mention of that after I sent my post. <Sheepish Grin>
----- Original Message -----
From: "Jana Jackson" <jana@xxxxxxxxxxxxxxx>
To: <bookshare-discuss@xxxxxxxxxxxxx>
Sent: Monday, September 13, 2004 10:50 AM
Subject: [bookshare-discuss] Re: Do these books get read before being
submitted?
> Hi! Some books are read before they are submitted. Others are simply
> checked. We've been asking that submitters do a more thorough
spell-check,
> page integrity check, etc., before submitting. This should help a
submitter
> to track down those garbled pages and fix them before submitting their
> books. Take care!
>
> Jana
>
> ----- Original Message -----
> From: "boomerdad" <boomerdad@xxxxxxxxxxxx>
> To: <bookshare-discuss@xxxxxxxxxxxxx>
> Sent: Monday, September 13, 2004 5:12 AM
> Subject: [bookshare-discuss] Do these books get read before being
submitted?
>
>
> > After having some difficulty scanning Wizard and Glass by Stephen King
(I
> think Openbook doesn't like scanning big books when set to scan page
layout
> elements, but that's a whole other topic for another list), I downloaded
WIG
> from Bookshare and began to read. My first finding was that the entire
book
> was double-spaced. I was a bit irritated, but I figured well, maybe there
> was a problem either in converting the book to the Bookshare format, or
> maybe when Openbook loaded it as an .ark file something happened. I
> figured, well, I can just manually fix this as I read. No big. Then I
came
> up on a page that is completely and totally garbled, beyond any ability to
> recognize what the text is supposed to be. There are ^ symbols all over
the
> place, and other oddities. Granted, the book is over 600 pages long, and
> that may be the only page like this ... I stopped reading in disgust and
> opted to try re-scanning this mammoth with Openbook. I have yet to do so;
> that's tomorrow's t
> > hree-plus-hour task. My question is: If the person read this before
> submitting it, why not re-scan the offending page(s)? And if the
submitting
> person didn't read it before submitting ... why submit something you
haven't
> read yourself? It just seems like an awfully big leap of faith to do
this;
> I've done it twice, and both times I was, thankfully, given the
opportunity
> to make "corrections" in the form of rescanning pages that had
> unintelligible material. Once I was able to take advantage of the
> opportunity, once I wasn't ... but it taught me a very valuable lesson, as
> was reinforced by my Wizard and Glass experience. Besides, if you read
> something before submitting it, you get a chance to edit out the errors of
a
> scan and submit a near-perfect to perfect copy of your book.
> > It occurs to me as I write this that maybe the offending page could've
> been caused by Openbook somehow, as I've encountered garbled pages like
this
> when scanning with Finereader from time to time. I find this unlikely,
> though, since so far as I know, Openbook merely reads from the
> Daisy-formatted book, and doesn't "convert" it to anything.
> >
> > The only possible objection to this read-before-submitting thing that
> comes readily to mind is "Well, if we did that, many fewer books would be
> available," to which I reply that while this is true, the quality of said
> books would be more consistent, more likely than not, and would lead to
many
> more satisfying reading experiences. I submit many more books to
> Bookshare.org than I personally download, mainly because I've found from
my
> experiences that downloading a book from Bookshare is a rather
hit-and-miss
> experience.
> >
> > I also want to hasten to add that I am not in any way flaming the
> individual who submitted Wizard and Glass. As I said, I've had this
happen
> myself to two of my submissions, so the question is more or less
> hypothetical; I was merely relating my experience, which happened to
involve
> that particular book.
> >
> > If this post has had a harsh edge to it, I assure you it's not
> intentional. I am frustrated, and that has probably carried over into my
> writing, despite my attempts to prevent it from doing so. I already have
> scanned the book twice unsuccessfully because of the affore-mentioned
> page-layout problem in OpenBook, and the idea of scanning it *again* is
...
> well ... frustrating. I thought about just trying to re-scan any
> problematic pages ... but the Bookshare pages and Openbook's page
divisions
> don't line up, so I'd have to do all sorts of cutting and pasting and
> deleting and ... yikes...! I think if my problem had just been with
garbled
> pages, I'd do it, but since I would have to delete all those blank lines
as
> I read the Bookshare version ... I'll try scanning it one. more. time.
> with the page-layout feature turned off and hope for better results.
> >
> > If nothing else, thanks for listening to (reading) me vent. I realize
> Bookshare is a voluntary program, and its existence is a wonderful thing;
> that's why I've joined it, and that's why I submit books I read. I just
> wish that when downloading a book to read from Bookshare, I could be more
> secure in the knowledge that I won't have to worry about encountering
> incomprehensible garbage that makes me guess at what occurred in passages
of
> a book.
> >
>
>
Other related posts:
