[bksvol-discuss] Re: Proofing the impossible proof
- From: "Aaron Cannon" <cannona@xxxxxxxxxxxxxxxxxxxxxx>
- To: <bksvol-discuss@xxxxxxxxxxxxx>
- Date: Fri, 8 Aug 2008 09:47:59 -0500
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Hi Roger.
I must respectfully disagree. While it is true that there are many online
dictionaries, people still buy dictionaries. There are several reasons for
this, but the one I am partial to is that you don't always get a quality
definition from online resources, like what you would get from a
Merriam-Webster's Collegiate Dictionary, 11th Edition, or an Oxford
Dictionary of the English Language.
Also, what is a thesaurus? Most people would say it's like a dictionary,
except when you look up a word in the alphabetical list, you find a list of
words which have similar meanings. However, this is only one type of
thesaurus. The other type, which many prefer and which was originally
developed by Peter Roget, has words organized by category, rather than
alphabetically. To use such a thesaurus, you either find the category
directly, or you look up a similar word in the index. Such a thesaurus, at
least in my opinion, is much more powerful, because you don't have to think
of a direct synonym. You just need to get close enough, turn to the right
section, and then browse outward from that point until you come to the word
you are looking for. In an alphabetically arranged thesaurus on the other
hand, if you don't find the word you want in the list of words for the
synonym you thought of, you are out of luck, unless you can get closer by
looking up one of the alternatives offered, or by thinking of another word.
If you know of a web site that offers such functionality, I would love to
know about it. It certainly wouldn't be impossible, but if it has been
done, I haven't found it.
Finally, there are many other books that would be valuable to have in the
collection, but are not because they are too large a task for any one person
to tackle.
Thanks.
Aaron
- --
Skype: cannona
MSN/Windows Messenger: cannona@xxxxxxxxxxx (don't send email to the hotmail
address.)
- ----- Original Message -----
From: <Rogerbailey81@xxxxxxx>
To: <bksvol-discuss@xxxxxxxxxxxxx>
Sent: Friday, August 08, 2008 8:52 AM
Subject: [bksvol-discuss] Re: Proofing the impossible proof
In the case of dictionaries and thesauruses I find that very usable such
resources are available on line. It seems to me that downloading and using
a
scanned print copy of such a tome would be too much hassle when an easier
way is
easily available. In a message dated 8/8/2008 6:43:25 A.M. Pacific
Daylight
Time, cannona@xxxxxxxxxxxxxxxxxxxxxx writes:
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Hi all.
It has bothered me for sometime that Bookshare doesn't have the important
reference books that are central to any good library. We have no
dictionary, thesaurus, Chicago Manual of Style, and others. Primarily
this
is due to the fact that these books are huge, and don't scan well. So
what
are our options?
The best option, and one that I hope Bookshare is working on, is getting
the
text direct from the publisher. However, failing that, we may still be
able
to scan and proof these books. I would propose borrowing a concept
developed by distributed proofreaders, a group working with Project
Gutenberg. Basically, volunteers visit a web page which shows an image
of a
single page from a book, and a textbox with the OCR output for that same
page. The proofer then corrects the output and submits it back to the
server, all within their web browser. It seems to me that this concept
would work just as well for us.
Thoughts? Has this been considered and rejected for reasons of which I
am
unaware?
Of course, the other big hurtle would be to ensure that these books were
added to the collection with a more advanced navigation structure in the
Daisy XML than is typical, otherwise they may end up being quite
unusable.
What's the use of having a dictionary that is impossible to navigate?
Thanks.
Aaron
- --
Skype: cannona
MSN/Windows Messenger: cannona@xxxxxxxxxxx (don't send email to the
hotmail
address.)
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