[bksvol-discuss] Re: Editing books
- From: "Donna Smith" <donnafsmith@xxxxxxxxxxxxx>
- To: <bksvol-discuss@xxxxxxxxxxxxx>
- Date: Thu, 30 Sep 2004 08:22:23 -0400
Hi Lisa and others. First, Lisa, thank you for joining the pool of
volunteers for BookShare. We need all the help we can get! <smile>
You will find as many opinions about how to edit, accept and reject books as
there are people willing to answer your question, and I am no exception to
that rule. Once you've done a few books, you will begin to establish your
own approach based on what you are personally willing to do. Here's what I
do.
First, I try to keep in mind the bottom line requirements of
BookShare...that the title, author, copyright holder and date be accurate,
that all pages are there and that the text of the book be readable. It is
this last point that sends us off in all directions with our own
interpretations about what is "readable."
If the text is all there, but there are consistent scanning errors such as
"/" or "1" for "I" or "rn" for "m" or random junk characters such as ` ~ @
etc., then I will use find and replace to correct most of these. I'll also
spend time removing hyphens at the end of pages, taking out extra blank
lines, and fixing chapter headings or the first line of chapters which are
often printed in all caps or a fancy font that doesn't scan well.
If the text of the book is consistently missing letters/words, something
that usually indicates that the book wasn't pressed tightly enough against
the scanner bed thus cutting off the words that appear toward the crease of
the book, or sometimes that the edge of the book overlaps the outer edge of
the scanner, it becomes a candidate for rejection...see more later.
If the text of the book is mostly good, but is missing pages, I attempt to
either contact the person who scanned and submitted it or look for the book
in my library to fill in the missing pages. If I can't find either the book
or the submitter, then it becomes a candidate for rejection.
If the text is there, but lines are broken up so that it becomes necessary
to piece sentences together such as Cindy was describing, the book becomes a
candidate for rejection.
Whether I really reject a book or not, usually depends on my assessment of
what the book is. If it is a book that is easy to find and not likely to be
crucial to someone...say a student trying to complete a class this
semester...then I usually go ahead and reject it. It is much easier to
rescan a book entirely than to spend a great deal of time fixing scanning
errors that can be avoided.
If it is a less available book or one that might really be important to
someone, then I will release it back to the download list with a note on
this list to see if there is another volunteer with more patience than I who
might want to fix it.
Put more simply, if it is a dime-a-dozen romance, western, or mystery, and
it's all messed up, then I reject it. If it is a serious work on culture,
economics, humanity, etc., then I'm more likely to release it for someone
else to work on.
Bottom line for me is that scanners get $2.50 credit for scanning a book
whereas validators get $0.50, and I believe that the bulk of the
responsibility for making sure that the book is truly readable falls on the
scanner...and I say that as one who mostly scans. I can get a good scan of
a 300 page paperback in an hour and a half even with a little clean-up work
after scanning, whereas it might take 4-5 hours or even longer to clean up a
bad scan.
So download several books, look at them, and pick one that you think you can
work on and release the others. After you do it for a while, you will
become more comfortable making decisions about when to release and when to
reject. A good place to start would be with some of the titles that scanner
post to this list usually under the subject line of "just submitted" with
some information about whether it is a clean copy. So for instance, when
Shelly or Natasha say that they've just submitted a book which they've read
and know to be a good scan, you can be pretty sure that it will be an easy
validation, just doing basic checks for page integrity, title information
and spot checking the text for readability.
Good luck! It won't take you long to get the hang of it!
Peace and Hope,
Donna
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