It appears that the Bookshare staff is doing exactly what they encourage
us not to do, submitting raw scans that have not even been looked at
before they are submitted.
___
Carl Sagan
“Every aspect of Nature reveals a deep mystery and touches our sense of wonder
and awe. Those afraid of the universe as it really is, those who pretend to
nonexistent knowledge and envision a Cosmos centered on human beings will
prefer the fleeting comforts of superstition. They avoid rather than confront
the world. But those with the courage to explore the weave and structure of the
Cosmos, even where it differs profoundly from their wishes and prejudices, will
penetrate its deepest mysteries.”
― Carl Sagan, Cosmos
On 6/5/2020 7:10 PM, Judy wrote:
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 <mailto:cherryjam@xxxxxxxxxxxxxxxx>
*Sent:* Thursday, June 04, 2020 9:24 PM
*To:* bksvol-discuss@xxxxxxxxxxxxx
<mailto: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 <mailto:cherryjam@xxxxxxxxxxxxxxxx>
*Sent:* Thursday, June 04, 2020 9:01 PM
*To:* bksvol-discuss@xxxxxxxxxxxxx
<mailto: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
