[bksvol-discuss] Re: Awesome - 151,663 Titles on Bookshare

  • From: Ali Al-hajamy <aalhajamy@xxxxxxxxx>
  • To: bksvol-discuss@xxxxxxxxxxxxx
  • Date: Fri, 22 Jun 2012 21:08:40 -0400

I only use BRF, and can assure you that Bookshare books in British Braille never use the British Braille code. The only difference is the spelling and punctuation of certain words. The same goes for any of the other providers of digital Braille files in America.


On 22-Jun-12 20:50, Roger Loran Bailey wrote:
As a very poor Braille reader in the first place I do not read Bookshare books in Braille and, no, I have never read British Braille. I would not think that Bookshare books would be in British Braille even for the British English books though. I don't know that, but it would seem to be something that would be too much of an extra effort and possibly expense to have two English Braille translators. I would expect that if you download a British English book it would be in American Braille with just the punctuation and spelling different as it would appear to a sighted person. Like I said, though, I really do not know. Have you or anyone else here downloaded British English books from Bookshare and found that not only the spelling but also the standard of Braille was different?
On 6/22/2012 8:23 PM, Dasha Radford wrote:
Ever tried reading British English braille? Now that will slow you down a little at least to start with. Particularly the rather strange way of doing punctuation. You will get used to it I did but it looks really strange at first.

Sent from my iPhone

On Jun 22, 2012, at 8:17 PM, Roger Loran Bailey <rogerbailey81@xxxxxxx> wrote:

As someone who used to read books both in British and American English with my eyes I can testify that there is no trouble switching from one to another. The differences in spelling does stand out, but it doesn't slow you down or interfere with comprehension.
On 6/22/2012 6:02 PM, Dasha Radford wrote:
In the advanced search page there should be and all languages option or it may be called any in the languages box. I think part of differentiation may have to do with spelling and read the writing style. Yes it's true that if you can read one you can certainly read the other but the phrasing and slightly different spelling not to mention the particulars in printing are what make the differentiation necessary. However, I do feel that the search for the two at least in the advanced should be changed from US English and British English to just English. If you speak the English language and if you read with an assistive device such as your computer, notetaker, or phone using some kind of screen reading software or in the case of the phone read to go or something like it there should be absolutely no reason why you shouldn't be able to understand the writing. If you read the books with your eyes and you're not used to it there might be some trouble.

Sent from my iPhone

On Jun 22, 2012, at 4:15 PM, Roger Loran Bailey <rogerbailey81@xxxxxxx> wrote:

It is interesting that when I click the search button without filling anything in the search field I thought I was getting a list of every book Bookshare has, but I only get 145,688 titles returned. I don't really have a lot of reason to have a list of every single book in the collection sitting right in front of me, but I thought that was a way to find out how many books were in the collection. It is apparently not. I think I see the reason for the discrepancy. I have my advanced search settings set for as broad a search of the collection as possible and assume that if I want it to be narrower I can narrow it for a specific search when I do that specific search. The problem seems to be the language. I have it set to search American English and I see no way to search for more than one language at a time. The only reason I would have to search for all languages at once is to see how many books are in the collection, but that is now taken care of by this new counter featur
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  .
However, it would really be nice if I could search for American English and British English at the same time. They are treated as separate languages though. I can see why the choice of specifying a language is there. There is no point in searching for books in a language that one cannot read. However, when it comes to British English and American English there really should not be anyone who can read one and not the other. I don't see why they are treated as different languages in the search feature. As long as they are, though, does anyone know how to search both at one time without having to do a different search for each language?
On 6/22/2012 3:40 PM, Judy s. wrote:
I just looked at the new version of Bookshare's entry page on the website (http://www.bookshare.org). I love the new feature on the right hand side of the page that's a counter of how many books are in the collection. As of today, there are 151,663 titles. That is totally awesome.

As a sighted but disabled member, I'm also grateful for and thrilled by the number of publisher quality books that have entered the collection in the last 18 months with the original illustrations intact. I haven't read a book where I can look at the illustrations for over 20 years. Way to go, Bookshare! I'm psyched about the POET project to get illustrations described. It gives me hope that eventually everyone can have access to both illustrations and good descriptions of the illustrations in the future.

Judy s.
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