[bksvol-discuss] Re: BAEN BOOKS
- From: Guido Corona <guidoc@xxxxxxxxxx>
- To: bksvol-discuss@xxxxxxxxxxxxx
- Date: Fri, 11 Jan 2008 10:43:44 -0600
We have been officially directed by Claire to refrain from submitting
eText that we have obtained from the Baen online library or from Baen
Webscriptions. Bookshare.org with source Bean book file 'en masse' and
convert them to Daisy for us in a uniform and standardized way. We are
however still free to do our own scans from print copies and submit them;
we can expect that eventually our scans of Bean books in the library may
be replaced by publisher-perfect copies.
G.
Guido Dante Corona
IBM Research,
Human Ability & Accessibility Center, (HA&AC)
Austin Tx.
Phone: 512. 838. 9735.
Email: guidoc@xxxxxxxxxxx
Web: http://www.ibm.com/able
". . . Maybe it was only those who were most certain they were right who
were guaranteed to be wrong. And that maybe, just maybe, those who
questioned the most were in the end those who came closest to being wise."
[David Poyer, The Command]
Misha <mlsestak@xxxxxxxxxxxxx>
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[bksvol-discuss] Re: BAEN BOOKS
I agree with your last point, opportunities should be taken. Since Baen
Books has chosen to use the ISBN of a print edition on their ebooks (and
chosen is the right word since ISBNs are indeed a commercial tracking
number that publishers use however they choose, some use different books
for different editions, some use the same number for everything with the
same title and author, some mix it up), until Baen chooses to make a
wholesale transfer of files that can be easily be converted to
bookshare, anyone ought to be able to submit one of their ebooks that
has been converted to look like a scan of the paper edition would.
Whether this is easier than just scanning the paper copy (since you'd
have to have that as well as the ebook), would probably depend on the
particular skills of the person involved.
Misha
talmage@xxxxxxxxxx wrote:
> Hey Guido,
>
> Once these discussions get started I frequently find out more about a
> topic than I really want to know.
> Case in point I was looking into the subject of ISBNs. While I knew
> that they've been around since the early 70's, I wasn't aware that
> they were primarily a commercial tracking tool like bar codes are. I
> guess I thought they were more along the lines of copyright protection
> and registration. One thing I ascertained however, is that while an
> e-text could have an ISBN, it probably wouldn't, as we are still in
> the early stages of electronic publishing, and bookstores etc.
> wouldn't have a need to order an e-text version by ISBN.
> Regarding Baen's e-text books, I would argue that as it is a
> commercially available copyrighted work presented by the publisher, it
> is its own unique edition and the ISBNs referenced are not for that
> version, but rather reflect those of the print edition. In many books
> you will see multiple ISBNs referring to books other than the one in
> hand.
> As for the soft page breaks, I'm not sure what the deal is with
> Kurzweil, as the 3 separate programs I loaded a Baen rtf file into all
> reflected the same number of pages in accordance with the page and
> margins as set forth in the RTF by Baen.
> I guess a couple of the reasons I am turning into such a strong
> advocate of pulling these RTF files into the collection are partly
> what you stated about the publishers and their typical source files.
> It certainly is unusual for a publisher to have RTF files available,
> and you're right most of their books are in a mark up language that if
> not proprietary, it at least is not a run of the mill one, making it
> annoying to figure out what the control codes indicate. Another
> reason I have is the same as one Jim mentioned the other day, that
> while something is available today, it may not be forever. What is
> that saying, something like, "opportunity missed is "opportunity lost.
>
> Dave
>
> At 01:46 PM 1/10/2008, you wrote:
>
>> Thank you Dave. The problem is that soft breaks are induced by the
>> word processing package and do not correspond to physical page breaks
>> in the print copy matching the ISBN in the file. In particular, the
>> book 1812 I have been examining has approx 250 pages on Kurzweil
>> K1K, 450 pages on MS Word. Yet Amazon indicates the print copy to
>> have 560 pages. I venture that Bookshare staff may source Baen book
>> files directly from the publisher 'en masse' in the most suitable
>> formats, and may process them uniformly. It is worth pointing out
>> that publishers usually print from specialized files formats
>> containing page breaks aligned to print copies, although these
>> print-ready files are not consumer-friendly and are usually deemed to
>> be a private/confidential intellectual property of the publisher and
>> are as such not for sale or public distribution.
>>
>> G.
>>
>>
>>
>> Guido Dante Corona
>> IBM Research,
>> Human Ability & Accessibility Center, (HA&AC)
>> Austin Tx.
>> Phone: 512. 838. 9735.
>> Email: guidoc@xxxxxxxxxxx
>> Web: <http://www.ibm.com/able>http://www.ibm.com/able
>>
>> ". . . Maybe it was only those who were most certain they were right
>> who were guaranteed to be wrong. And that maybe, just maybe, those
>> who questioned the most were in the end those who came closest to
>> being wise."
>> [David Poyer, The Command]
>>
>>
>>
>> talmage@xxxxxxxxxx
>> Sent by: bksvol-discuss-bounce@xxxxxxxxxxxxx
>>
>> 01/10/2008 11:10 AM
>> Please respond to
>> bksvol-discuss@xxxxxxxxxxxxx
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>> To
>> bksvol-discuss@xxxxxxxxxxxxx
>> cc
>> Subject
>> [bksvol-discuss] Re: BAEN BOOKS
>>
>>
>>
>>
>> Pratik,
>>
>> You're not differing from my point, you're changing the issue
>> altogether. My difficulty is not with page demarcations, but the
>> decimal value 13 embedded in a file as a sacrosanct character. There
>> are other indicators, and ways of knowing that you've moved from page
>> 12 to page 13 without a decimal 13.
>> Regarding the citation and discussion issue, if you are citing a
>> source, you indicate copyright, edition, etc. So if you're citing an
>> electronic version you so annotate, and indicate where it can be found.
>> My concern here is that we are becoming slaves to minutia. The files
>> we are perusing here aren't the database at The Center For Disease
>> Control. No one is going to die because the font isn't quite right,
>> or there is a page break only every 2 pages, and yes I should note I
>> said page break not demarcation.
>> As for adding the Baen books to the collection, I think it's a shame
>> to schlep them off on the staff when all the e-text versions need, is
>> for the soft breaks to be replaced by hard breaks. It would seem to
>> me that the books from O'Reilly and Gutenberg would be a better focus
>> for the staff, as neither of their's are already in RTF, rather than
>> the Baen books which are. If the staff gathered all the Baen
>> offerings, and placed them on the Step 1 page, it would be a simple
>> matter for the volunteers to go through and put hard breaks where the
>> soft breaks are. For that matter, as far as the gathering goes, I
>> would be willing to collect them all and submit them on CD or DVD.
>>
>> Dave
>>
>> At 10:11 AM 1/10/2008, you wrote:
>> >Dave,
>> >
>> >I beg to differ. Page breaks, or better yet, page demarcation, is
>> used in
>> >the academic area (or anywhere) for citation purposes. Page breaks
(or
>> >control characters thereof) weren't only invented for printing
>> purposes.
>> >They are there so that intelligent conversations can reference correct
>> >pages. The emphasis on correct page breaks or pagination is
absolutely
>> >essential for books so long as the sighted world continues to use the
>> >system. Whether or not this should be the case is an entirely
>> different
>> >question.
>> >
>> >As to the Baen books being scanned or added to the collection by
>> >Bookshare.org automatically--I'll say this. I'm sure Bookshare has
>> all the
>> >intentions to process these books in a quick manner. But, until that
>> >happens, I'll continue to advocate that volunteers continue to scan
>> books
>> >that they want to see in the collection immediately.
>> >
>> >Pratik
>>
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