Roger,
I am delighted to read your post and hear that you are
overcoming your reluctance (I prefer that to fear) to
scan. From what you say about the two pages you did it
sounds as if you'll do wonderful scans and will
contribute some needed--but not terribly popular books
to the collection.
I've always found it difficult to read help pages
until I need help. I know nothing about Open Book, but
in using other programs in the early days, I didn't
have the patience to read the books. Fortunately, I
had my husband to ask for help--but then, later, the
people who create the programs must have realized
there were people like me because I found that when I
was having trouble or wanted to know how to do
something the Hle- menu" on the computer told me in
simple terms.
Here on this list are many very helpful people. My
unasked for advice is to go ahead and start scanning
something--maybe one of the Trotsky books you can get
from the library--and then if you run into trouble,
ask here. I say that because you sound a little bit
like someone who is hesitant to start and so sort of
put it off by wanting to read some more. smile
Cindy Ro
--- rogerbailey81@xxxxxxx wrote:
As I said earlier I am contemplating scanning a book
or more for
Bookshare and I may need some help. Let me start by
explaining some of
my history with scanning. Back in 1996 feeling that
the computer
revolution was passing me by I acquired an
Arkenclone computer and the
version of Open Book that was current at that time
from the Arkenstone
company. I was so ignorant that it is surprising
that I even figured
out how to plug it in and I was totally on my own. I
never did learn to
use that computer properly. Looking back on it I
could kick myself for
not even knowing what technical support was. I was
aware that a phone
number was available for technical support, but the
word technical
intimidated me. I thought that if it had anything to
do with anything
technical then it was way out of my league.
Eventually I did figure out
how to use Open Book and I actually scanned a few
books for my personal
use. It is too bad I could not contribute them to
Bookshare, but I did
not have Internet access at that time and couldn't
figure out how to
get it. I am not sure how long Bookshare has been
around, but it seems
like I first started to hear about it around that
time. Well, I never
did use that computer for anything but Open Book.
Eventually it stopped
working. By then I had heard here and there enough
about technical
support lines that I figured out that I should call
that Arkenstone
technical support number. That is when I found out
that Arkenstone no
longer existed and now I was calling a company
called Freedom
Scientific. The technical support guy did listen to
my description of
my problem though and then told me that my computer
was hopelessly
obsolete and that it was kaput. Okay, I spent a very
long time
computerless. Well, the computer was still there,
but it did nothing
but sit there and occasionally got dusted. The time
came that I was
feeling even more like I was being left behind by
the advance of
technology so I saved my money until I could buy a
new computer. I was
still so ignorant that I knew of nowhere else to
start but to call that
old Arkenstone, now Freedom Scientific, number. From
there I got the
address of the nearest Freedom Scientific dealer to
me and proceeded to
buy a computer with Open Book 6.0 installed on it.
The most exciting
thing for me was that I also got connected to the
Internet for the
first time. Boy, did I have fun exploring the
Internet. In fact, I got
so involved in exploring the Internet that I never
did get around to
using my Open Book software.
Well, I recently told you guys that I was
contemplating scanning some
books for Bookshare. I took my first step today by
opening up my Open
Book for the first time and looking around. As
usual, every time I
start to learn something new about computers I feel
overwhelmed, but
some of my use of that earlier version of Open Book
came back to me. I
could see, though, that this version was
considerably different. After
exhausting myself with the help pages I took a break
and then came back
to it and started to just explore the menus. I found
that I was
actually learning more by just browsing and clicking
menu choices to
see what would happen than I had been learning from
the help pages.
Finally this evening I tried scanning something.
There was a paperback
book on hand and I opened it at random somewhere in
the middle and
scanned it. I then read the two pages I had scanned
and surprisingly
enough there were no scannos and except for the need
to remove the page
headers it appeared to be ready for posting on
Bookshare if it had been
a whole book. In fact, thinking that I might make it
my first scann for
Bookshare I checked to see if it was already in the
collection. It was.
I suppose I will have to find something else for
that initial
submission.
Now, despite my success with those two pages I am
not ready to scan for
submission yet. I need to go back and read those
help pages some more
and experiment with those menu choices some more. I
am also sure that I
will have to come to you guys to beg for help before
I am ready. So
here is my first request. A while back someone
posted on the list a
list of advice for using the Open Book for scanning.
It included
recommended settings and actions. Could someone post
that email again?
and if anyone can think of some basic advice to give
to a self-taught
computer user who is still largely computer
illiterate on using Open
Book 6.0 for this purpose please offer that advice.
Right now, though,
I am exhausted by hours of teaching myself and I am
heading to bed to
await whatever you have to tell me tomorrow.
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WISH LIST (CALLED REQUESTED ADDITIONS TO THE BOOKSHARE COLLECTION)IS
AVAILABLE AT
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www.lljfm.net/bookshare/home.htm
A LIST OF BOOKS CURRENTLY BEING SCANNED IS AVAILABLE AT
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www.lljfm.net/bookshare/home.htm
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