Even though I agree that there are plenty of books of good quality and interest to bookshare for volunteers to scan--even though I agree that it is a tremendous benefit having all the publisher provided books entering the collection--I think it might be a good time for bookshare to reconsider the assumption that publisher books should replace volunteer provided books. With the quality of current OCR software and the details provided on what scanners and proofers can do to improve the quality of books they get into the collection, there shouldn't be much difference in quality any more. Plus volunteer provided books have page breaks and chapter title indicators to make book navigation easier, not to mention picture descriptions and other scanner/proofer info. I'll grant there are probably books from the early days of bookshare that, loving effort that they were, could be improved by being replaced by a publisher copy, but for current submissions, perhaps that shouldn't always be the case.
Misha On 7/26/2010 10:47 PM, Judy s. wrote:
I have to agree with Courtney and Roger. I really do appreciate the frustration others are feeling, but I guess I'm coming from a different place.I just took a look in Wikipedia. According to UNESCO, between the United States and the United Kingdom, 378,000 book titles are published in English each and every year.The books entering into the collection from publishers include several years worth of titles for each publisher. But even if they represented only one year of titles, and if Bookshare adds 10,000 publisher quality books every single month in a year, that leaves 266,000 titles printed in English each and every year that publishers aren't submitting that a volunteer can add. Add on top of that all the interesting and well-written out-of-print books (and there are literally millions of titles like that), and us volunteers really have a pretty big smorgasbord of books we can choose from to add.I don't like any more than anyone else having to go through the convolutions we're doing currently to figure out which publishers are submitting books, which aren't, and what books the outsourcers are working on. That whole process needs a major fix, because it's a royal pain in the rump for us volunteers.But overall, I see us volunteers as having to avoid only a limited subset of books that are published, because they are going to enter the collection as publishers quality, in the bigger scheme of things.But that's just my opinion and way of looking at it. smile. Judy s. Quoting Courtney Stover <liamskitten@xxxxxxxxx>:Hi All: I can understand the frustration of having your books replaced by PQ books; the first series I ever scanned has just been replaced. However, I think that in our anger, we're sometimes missing the bigger picture. There've been over nine thousand books added to the collection in a month! And all of the PQ books I've downloaded, aside from missing page breaks, have been practically flawless. It's amazing to realize that large numbers of books will continue to flow in to the collection via outsourcers and publishers as well as volunteers. We're gaining so much so quickly it makes my head spin. Realistically, there's no way volunteers could add books alone with the speed/frequency they're being added now. And that in no way is meant to demean volunteers; it's merely a statement of fact. However, while there're newer books coming in at a dizzying speed, Roger's right; there're so many older/special interest books volunteers can provide; that's where I'll be shifting my efforts, and I hope others will, too. Just my two cents, Courtney On 7/27/10, Denise Thompson <deniset@xxxxxxx> wrote:-----Original Message----- From: Andy B. Sent: 07/26/2010, 9:42 PM To: bksvol-discuss@xxxxxxxxxxxxxSubject: [bksvol-discuss] Re: Hopefully my last post on volunteers VS pq i would have to agree. I have no interest in scanning for the sake of it. If bookshare has grown beyond us isn't that really the way it should be? After all we want the time to come when all publishers will automatically submit their books for electronic conversion. It's difficult when in a way we're now getting what we've hoped for and what many of us have fought for, but wemay have to celebrate our accomplishments, keep fine tuning and take upanother cause of our choice. Downinloading and listening to books as we go.How many people get to say they worked themselves out of a job in their lifetime. DeniseOur job shouldn't be to find the most funky out of date and most left behind books possible. It should be to find a book we think someone else would want to read and send it along. The first one just makes the volunteer network sound like it is desperately trying to hang on until it gets snuffed outsomehow. I'm sure that's not what we are here for. -----Original Message----- From: bksvol-discuss-bounce@xxxxxxxxxxxxx[mailto:bksvol-discuss-bounce@xxxxxxxxxxxxx] On Behalf Of Roger Loran BaileySent: Monday, July 26, 2010 10:39 PM To: bksvol-discuss@xxxxxxxxxxxxxSubject: [bksvol-discuss] Re: Hopefully my last post on volunteers VS pqAs I have mentioned before, what with outsourcers and publisher submissions the volunteer contributed books in the collection is now a small minorityand shrinking. That does not mean, though, that there is no role forvolunteers at all anymore. It is just necessary to shift niches. That is, again, long out of print books, small presses, vanity presses and the mostobscure books that you can find. _ _ _"Socialism can be built only by free men and women working together to laythe foundations for a new society and transforming themselves in the process." - Ernesto "Che" Guevara The Militant: http://www.themilitant.com Pathfinder Press: http://www.pathfinderpress.com Granma International: http://www.granma.cu/ingles/index.html ----- Original Message ----- From: "Larry Lumpkin" <llumpkin@xxxxxxxxxxxxx> To: <bksvol-discuss@xxxxxxxxxxxxx> Sent: Monday, July 26, 2010 10:16 PM Subject: [bksvol-discuss] Hopefully my last post on volunteers VS pqIf bookshare values the scanning and proofing of books by volunteers. Tell us how? In what way? If we are to scan and proof books for the collection,which books? Someone sends me a box of books to add to the collection butI am decidedly NOT going to scan them only to find that my scanning and possibly the proofing of my wife who spends sometimes days on a book readingit from cover to cover will be dumped in the bit bucket because of a PQsubmission which is often inferior to our efforts. I'm sorry, but theanswers provided by bookshare staff concerning this issue have not been satisfactory. The solution we are being offered is, "well, go ahead and scan and proof away and good luck." As you can tell, I am decidedly nothappy.To unsubscribe from this list send a blank Email to bksvol-discuss-request@xxxxxxxxxxxxxput the word 'unsubscribe' by itself in the subject line. To get a list ofavailable commands, put the word 'help' by itself in the subject line. To unsubscribe from this list send a blank Email to bksvol-discuss-request@xxxxxxxxxxxxxput the word 'unsubscribe' by itself in the subject line. 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