[bksvol-discuss] Re: My nickel's worth--quality control
- From: Guido Corona <guidoc@xxxxxxxxxx>
- To: bksvol-discuss@xxxxxxxxxxxxx
- Date: Sun, 20 Jun 2004 09:49:45 -0500
Jackie, Bookshare staff never discouraged quality. But the old
guidelines where drawn when the collection was in extreme need of growth.
Now that we have almost 20K titles we can afford -- and truly should -- be
a little more quality conscious.
G.
Guido D. Corona
IBM Accessibility Center, Austin Tx.
IBM Research,
Phone: (512) 838-9735
Email: guidoc@xxxxxxxxxxx
Visit my weekly Accessibility WebLog at:
http://www-3.ibm.com/able/weblog/corona_weblog.html
"Jackie M." <xercon@xxxxxxx>
Sent by: bksvol-discuss-bounce@xxxxxxxxxxxxx
06/19/2004 02:55 PM
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[bksvol-discuss] Re: My nickel's worth--quality control
The bookshare folks themselves discourage quality - their instructions
appear to indicate they want quantity more than quality.
- Jackie McCraw
----- Original Message -----
From: "Gary Wunder" <gwunder@xxxxxxxxxxxxx>
To: <bksvol-discuss@xxxxxxxxxxxxx>
Sent: Friday, June 18, 2004 7:10 AM
Subject: [bksvol-discuss] Re: My nickel's worth--quality control
> I agree. As a kid I tried my hand at dish washing and wanted to
> be fast at it. My mother was encouraged by my enthusiasm but put
> back things which still had grease on the sides or little specs
> which were perfectly feelable. She told me she was glad I was
> helping to wash but the outcome had to be that the dish was
> clean.
>
> Now I'm not making a case for perfect scans, but nothing is more
> frustrating than to get into the middle of a book and then
> realize that suddenly I am hearing two columns of the book read
> side by side. These books have never been read by anyone either
> the scanner or the validator or they wouldn't appear like this.
> Someone, be it the scanner or validator, it seems to me, has to
> take responsibility for a read through. If it is the scanner,
> then the validators job is easier. If it is not the scanner, then
> the validator needs to be warned that he/she needs to read cover
> to cover.
>
> Just my opinion, and presented respectfully I hope.
>
> ----- Original Message -----
> From: "Susan Lumpkin" <slumpkin@xxxxxxxxxxxxx>
> To: <bksvol-discuss@xxxxxxxxxxxxx>
> Sent: Thursday, June 17, 2004 10:36 PM
> Subject: [bksvol-discuss] Re: My nickel's worth--quality control
>
>
> Hi Liz,
>
> I may get bashed too, but as a validator only, I too would prefer
> quality over quanity!
>
> Susan
>
>
> -----Original Message-----
> .From: "Liz Halperin"<lizzers@xxxxxxxxxxx>
> .Sent: 6/17/04 4:04:12 PM
> .To: "bksvol-discuss@xxxxxxxxxxxxx"<bksvol-discuss@xxxxxxxxxxxxx>
> .Subject: [bksvol-discuss] My nickel's worth--quality control
> .
> .Ok, I suspect I may get bashed, but here goes anyway:
> .
> .I wish everyone would just SLOW DOWN. There seems to be this
> frenzy to
> .get books into the collection, and less care on their quality.
> As a
> .braille reader, I know I am in the minority, but my patience for
> sloppy
> .books is low.
> .
> .When I scan a book I am very careful to send a clean copy up. I
> don't
> .expect the validator to have to do much of anything except make
> sure no
> .corruption of the file has occurred. I am proud of quality over
> .quantity.
> .
> .I have been doing some validating and there have been a few
> books
> .equally clean as those I submit. They are a joy to validate.
> Most have
> .problems. I fix what I can. Books are submitted without the ISBN
> listed
> .(even though it's right there), sections missing, whole messed
> up pages.
> .When I am faced with many blank pages and then text pages run
> together
> .and too many spelling errors and character errors, I feel no
> guilt to
> .reject the book. It's not worth spending so many hours on.
> Better to get
> .it rescanned in a better version. When I finally validate
> something,
> .it's clean and ready to go. Any problems after that are from the
> .Bookshare conversion processes.
> .
> .With over 500 books waiting for validation, I wish there would
> be a
> .moratorium on scanning submissions. When there was too much
> backlog at
> .the Bookshare end, they made a concerted effort to get caught
> up. It's
> .now OUR end that needs the effort, the volunteers.
> .
> .The two lists, books-volunteer-discuss and books-discuss, are
> very very
> .busy. What if all the time spent reading and writing on the
> lists was
> .spent on validating, for awhile, at least?
> .
> .What if scanners made an effort to send up better quality? What
> if
> .validators had better quality to start with and so could approve
> faster
> .and cleaner? What if we humans went beyond spellcheck and made
> sure that
> .other errors were caught? Errors such as "form" for "from" and
> "end" for
> ."and" and stuff like that? What if we went for quality over
> quantity
> .for awhile?
> .
> .Liz in Seattle
> .
> .Liz Halperin
> .Seattle, WA
> .lizzers@xxxxxxxxxxx
> .
> .
> .
> .
>
>
>
>
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