FLEISCHHAUER made the additional point that, as far as the text goes, AM
has gravitated towards SGML (he pointed to the boldface in the upper part
of the screen). Although extremely limited in its ability to translate
or interpret SGML, Personal Librarian will furnish both bold and italics
on screen; a fairly easy thing to do, but it is one of the ways in which
SGML is useful.
Striking a balance between quantity and quality has been a major concern
of AM, with accuracy being one of the places where project staff have
felt that less than 100-percent accuracy was not unacceptable.
FLEISCHHAUER cited the example of the standard of the rekeying industry,
namely 99.95 percent; as one service bureau informed him, to go from
99.95 to 100 percent would double the cost.
FLEISCHHAUER next demonstrated how AM furnishes users recourse to images,
and at the same time recalled LESK's pointed question concerning the
number of people who would look at those images and the number who would
work only with the text. If the implication of LESK's question was
sound, FLEISCHHAUER said, it raised the stakes for text accuracy and
reduced the value of the strategy for images.
Contending that preservation is always a bugaboo, FLEISCHHAUER
demonstrated several images derived from a scan of a preservation
microfilm that AM had made. He awarded a grade of C at best, perhaps a
C minus or a C plus, for how well it worked out. Indeed, the matter of
learning if other people had better ideas about scanning in general, and,
in particular, scanning from microfilm, was one of the factors that drove
AM to attempt to think through the agenda for the Workshop. Skew, for
example, was one of the issues that AM in its ignorance had not reckoned
would prove so difficult.
Further, the handling of images of the sort shown, in a desktop computer
environment, involved a considerable amount of zooming and scrolling.
Ultimately, AM staff feel that perhaps the paper copy that is printed out
might be the most useful one, but they remain uncertain as to how much
on-screen reading users will do.
Public-domain text, read in full here on John Shaqi.
Reviews
Reviews
No reviews yet
Be the first to share your thoughts on this work.
Join the Discussion
Join the discussion
Sign in to leave a comment or review.
Sign InorCreate an account