[bksvol-discuss] Re: Contemplating scanning a book.
- From: "Kathy Hester" <kathyruth@xxxxxxxxxx>
- To: <bksvol-discuss@xxxxxxxxxxxxx>
- Date: Wed, 17 Dec 2008 04:35:08 -0600
How exciting! I've been seeing your name on this list for a long time, and
it's interesting to know you're thinking about scanning. Congratulations!
I think the way you learned to use the computer, just diving in there and
doing it--even if it did take a while--is good. Going through the menus and
seeing what they do is a good way to learn how. You can always make
yourself notes of the keystrokes to use when it tells a letter after the
words in the menu items, which will speed things up, of course. Anyway, I'm
just running on. I can't even offer any helpful suggestions for Open Book,
since I use Kurzweil, but just thought I'd say "hang in there." I've been
scanning and validating for almost a year now, and find it a very worthwhile
and enjoyable thing to do.
Monica's list of dos and dont's is very helpful, and she mentions doing a
couple of pages at the time and then checking as you go. I know to my cost
that that is a bit of advice worth following. There's nothing like doing a
book, going over it after you "finish" scanning a large section of it, only
to find that you skipped pages here and there. I've gotten hold of some
books that seem to have pages that stick almost like they're glued every so
often--usually about every ten or fifteen pages. Fortunately, most books
aren't like that, and most don't seem to give trouble telling whether you've
turned one page or two, but if you meet with that problem, it's much less
frustrating if it's just one page back rather than 115 or something like
that.
Kathy
> "The LORD bless you and keep you;
> the LORD make His face shine upon you
> and be gracious to you;
> the LORD turn His face toward you
> and give you peace."
> Numbers 6:24-26
----- Original Message -----
From: <rogerbailey81@xxxxxxx>
To: <bksvol-discuss@xxxxxxxxxxxxx>
Sent: Tuesday, December 16, 2008 10:17 PM
Subject: [bksvol-discuss] Contemplating scanning a book.
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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