[bksvol-discuss] Re: synopses, quality, etc.

  • From: "Louise" <lougou@xxxxxxxxxxxxxx>
  • To: <bksvol-discuss@xxxxxxxxxxxxx>
  • Date: Thu, 29 Apr 2004 14:41:23 -0500

MessageAre we referring to book synopses or nerve synapses?


  ----- Original Message ----- 
  From: Pratik Patel 
  To: bksvol-discuss@xxxxxxxxxxxxx 
  Sent: Thursday, April 29, 2004 1:20 PM
  Subject: [bksvol-discuss] Re: synopses, quality, etc.


  Hello All,

  I think Guido's suggestion not only accomplishes what the volunteers need but 
has an added benefit.  From a marketting perspective, allowing people to read a 
truncated synapsis in the listing would give a further incentive to people to 
go and look at the entire synapsis unlike some current approaches that tell 
people to  "see long synapsis for detail."

  Pratik


  Pratik Patel 
  Managing Director 
  CUNY Assistive Technology Services 
  the City University of New York 
  (718) 997-3775 
  ppatel@xxxxxx 

    -----Original Message-----
    From: bksvol-discuss-bounce@xxxxxxxxxxxxx 
[mailto:bksvol-discuss-bounce@xxxxxxxxxxxxx] On Behalf Of Guido Corona
    Sent: Thursday, April 29, 2004 12:52 PM
    To: bksvol-discuss@xxxxxxxxxxxxx
    Subject: [bksvol-discuss] Re: synopses, quality, etc.



    Assuming a redesign of the database is feasible, or even advisable,  one 
possible way to handle a single synopsis is to have only a long synopsis,  
which is viewed in its entirety when displaying the book record.  The same long 
synopsis would instead be displayed in a truncated form on multiple book 
listings pages. 

    This would simplify the life of volunteers,  while still presenting 
subscribers with a highly usable  and flexible interface. 

    Guido 

    Guido 


    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




          "Sarah Van Oosterwijck" <curiousentity@xxxxxxxxxxxxx> 
          Sent by: bksvol-discuss-bounce@xxxxxxxxxxxxx 
          04/29/2004 11:08 AM Please respond to
                bksvol-discuss 


         To <bksvol-discuss@xxxxxxxxxxxxx>  
                cc  
                Subject [bksvol-discuss] Re: synopses, quality, etc. 

                

         



    Personally, I like having the ability to see a long synopsis when it is
    available, so I would be disappointed to see it illiminated.  I just wanted
    to give my opinion in this unofficial and unsolicited E-mail poll. :-)

    Thank you for your answer about the textarea tag.  Some html guides online
    must be incorrect, which I suspected since my tests with it didn't work.
    Could you tell me if there is a reason why textarea is used instead of input
    when input would allow for easy limiting of the number of characters
    entered? I know there may very well be a good reason for the other tag that
    I just don't know about. I know it will allow 200 characters as a length,
    because I tested that.
    Thanks.

    Sarah Van Oosterwijck
    curious entity at earthlink dot net


    ----- Original Message -----
    From: "Jesse Fahnestock" <Jesse.F@xxxxxxxxxxxx>
    To: <bksvol-discuss@xxxxxxxxxxxxx>
    Sent: Thursday, April 29, 2004 9:06 AM
    Subject: [bksvol-discuss] synopses, quality, etc.


    > Hey all -- sorry I've been offline for some lively conversation! I'll try
    to weigh in where necessary. As always, please feel free to email me offline
    about any of these issues.
    >
    > 1. Synopses: Just to be clear, while I understand the desire for synopses,
    books missing one or both forms of synopsis should not be rejected on that
    basis, by volunteer or administrator. I have no problem with the urging and
    cajoling of our fellow volunteers to include them, but making them mandatory
    would simply be prohibitive and discouraging for some of our submitters,
    especially those who submit in bulk.
    >
    > 2. The synopsis bug: There are a few cases where the synopsis being
    entered will not stick: namely, books that have previously been submitted
    and approved, whether or not they have since been withdrawn. In those cases
    the original synopses will stick. Validators are able to change the synopses
    on brand new submissions, however, so please don't be discouraged! The vast
    majority of your synopses are sticking. We're working on fixing it for books
    that have already existed on Bookshare.org, but it's been a tricky one.
    >
    > 3. Synopses from other sources: please do not copy synopses from
    Amazon.com or any other source, unless it is the same copy found on the book
    jacket. That is copyrighted material, and while it is "quotable" in a news
    context (like Alison's newsletter) it should not be used as the synopsis in
    our collection.
    >
    > 4. Site improvements: the categories issue is a long-standing one, and one
    we've spent a lot of time trying to plan for. While we do acknowledge the
    need for better category management, making changes would require a large
    amount of database work (not to mention likely manual recategorization),
    and, if it were not a completely robust solution, might need to be done over
    and over again. The full-scale answer is to change our metadata source
    entirely to something like what the library of congress uses. This change is
    probably a ways out still, but given our limited resources, it probably
    makes more sense to make that change once rather than try to take
    half-steps.
    >
    > The notification for users of rejection reasons is on the way, I'm told.
    Look for it in a rejection notice coming to you soon! (grin)
    >
    > The short synopsis field is a textarea field, and that does not accept the
    maxlength attribute. As Sara (I think) noted, fixing the length would
    require javascript, which is problematic for many users. I will float the
    idea for a single synopsis -- keep in mind that this will be displayed on
    the search results page, however, so it would still need to be pretty
    limited. You couldn't have a 100-word synopsis there.
    >
    > 5. Regarding text quality: I love the fact that this group has high
    standards -- I'm consistently amazed at the effort being put into the scans
    of others by our volunteers. But I'd encourage us to try to avoid accusatory
    messages when it comes to text quality. There are many mitigating factors,
    some of which have already been pointed out here, and we would be wrong to
    discourage anyone from submitting the books they want to share. So let's
    focus on ensuring the readability and legibility of what has been submitted,
    and of course encouraging our fellow scanners with tips and techniques as
    many of us already do.
    >
    >
    > ________________________
    >
    > Jesse Fahnestock
    > Collection Development Coordinator, Bookshare.org
    > www.bookshare.org
    >
    > A Project of The Benetech Initiative - Technology Serving Humanity
    > 480 S. California Ave., Suite 201
    > Palo Alto, CA 94306-1609  USA
    > (650)475-5440 x133
    > (650) 475-1066 FAX
    > jesse@xxxxxxxxxxxx
    > www.benetech.org
    >

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