Hi Lissi,
Bookshare is scanning Wish List books in house. They are intended for all
volunteer proofreaders, not just for sighted volunteers.
I wholeheartedly agree that the wish list book quality is substandard.
The place to complain to is Bookshare, and I would encourage everyone who is
frustrated with the quality of the wish list scans to do so. I've been grousing
to Bookshare about them for at least two years, as have at least two other
volunteers I know of who are equally as frustrated with these scans. There have
been some minor improvements on some specific issues, but they have a long way
to go to match the quality of most volunteer submitted scans
With wish list books the PDF isn't the file that is to be proofread. In
addition to the usual OCR rtf file created, Bookshare is also creating a PDF
file. The PDF file is made by collating all of the scanned images of the book.
Each page in the PDF corresponds to a page in the book, and is an image of that
page.
I've found for myself that these PDFs are helpful in at least 3 ways.
First, if you are a sighted volunteer and you encounter a problem in the book,
you can request the PDF and look at the actual image of the page of the book
and figure out. Obviously that's only helpful if you are sighted.
Second, anyone, sighted or not, can contact Bookshare staff when they encounter
a problem in a wish list book, explain the problem and the staff member can
look at the PDF and find the solution.
Third, if the OCR that was done on the book is awful, which is true for some of
the wish list books, this type of image based PDF can be OCRed again, with
adjustments in the OCR package for better recognition, without rescanning the
book.
Judy
On June 5, 2020 5:20:24 PM CDT, Estelnalissi <airadil@xxxxxxxxxxxxxx> wrote:
Dear Valerie, Judy, Beverly and Booksharian Friends,
First I don’t understand PDF very well because my JAWS doesn’t read it
but how can you proofread that kind of file if it isn’t RTF?
Second, I believe those books are prepared by an out sourcer. Can’t
they be expected to deliver books prepared to a higher standard? Are
they paid. Are they adults? Books I’ve proofread from the wish list are
full of invisible optional hyphens, speak in foreign languages with
JAWS, have invisible text that won’t allow me to delete it in the
normal ways using Word 10, Have missing portions of pages. I’ve had to
buy the books I’ve done so Evan could rescan many pages. The dust
jackets aren’t scanned at all and I feel Bookshare members deserve the
right to read the book jacket information like any other sighted
reader.
Our volunteer scanners do a far better job scanning books. If the out
sourcers are paid, then why not pay scanners a nominal sum per book in
actual money?
Third, Did I read correctly that wish list books aren’t meant for blind
volunteers? That makes me feel overlooked, and left out as if offering
wish list books for blind proofreaders is too much trouble for
Bookshare which was founded because blind people were sharing their
scans of books. So sad.
I remain here, grateful to be able to proofread, which I love doing
more than anyone could believe.
Always with love,
Lissi
If you use
From: Judy
Sent: Thursday, June 04, 2020 9:24 PM
To: bksvol-discuss@xxxxxxxxxxxxx
Subject: [bksvol-discuss] Re: Question for other deranged
perfectionists
*grin*
Judy
On June 4, 2020 8:16:44 PM CDT, Evan Reese <mentat1@xxxxxxxxxxxxxx>
wrote:
Oh well, I didn’t know that.
So I guess my advice to buy the book is kaput. <smile>
Evan
From: Judy
Sent: Thursday, June 04, 2020 9:01 PM
To: bksvol-discuss@xxxxxxxxxxxxx
Subject: [bksvol-discuss] Re: Question for other deranged
perfectionists
Hi Valerie,
Every wish list book scanned by staff has a pdf available from staff
that contains a scanned image of every page.
Send an email to volunteer@xxxxxxxxxxxxx, tell them you are
proofreading a wish list book that you'd like to have the PDF for, and
list the title and the author. They will send you a link that lets you
view the PDF online, and that will let you download the PDF as well.
Judy
On June 4, 2020 7:46:44 PM CDT, dmarc-noreply@xxxxxxxxxxxxx wrote:
In recent weeks I have picked up a couple of books off the wish list on
checkout. One of them is a YA book set in Hawaii with a lot of dialect.
I have put a ton of work into it already, realizing that the scanning
had not only stripped most of the italics, but had inferred traditional
words in place of dialect words. I guess my question is more often for
sighted volunteers, but how often do people feel the need to have
confirmation from the physical print in trying to achieve high
accuracy? I'm debating about the necessity of paying $6.50 to have the
Kindle copy available to continue making corrections. The first chapter
was available as a peek and it made me realize how much was missing or
improperly handled in the scan. Money is tight, and I hate to spend the
money, but I've also already invested so much in getting this to where
it is now that I almost feel compelled.
Everyone's thoughts are greatly appreciated.
Valerie
