No need to be sorry Winnifred. I don't own any stock in Librivox, and I have no stake in the organization. I don't even listen to audiobooks.Winnifred wrote: ↑February 27th, 2024, 5:23 pm I've been trying (not terribly successfully) to follow this discussion. In theory, it sounds good (the end result seems like it would be a net positive), but it does sound like a lot of work and most of it would fall on our Admins (the only "management" that Librivox has). There are only 29 of them, and I'm not even sure that all of them are currently active. Plus, some might not be interested in this kind of work. The ones who are active are often coordinating multiple book projects of their own, reading for group and solo projects, and PL/DPLing, in addition to serving as Meta Coordinators for a lot of projects. I don't see how they'd have time to take on entering the requisite data into the New Project Generator and Internet Archive (possibly dumb question: do they even have access to do this last on IA?)
Below are my <queries/comments> on one section of your proposal:
"How LOC Subject Headings will be Entered into Audiobook Records
For new books (still in process), Team Leaders will copy the LOC subject headings into the tags box in the New Project Template Generator before the book <each book individually?> is completed. Book Coordinators will no longer enter anything into the tags box. <This would require Team Leaders to have access to the "New Project Template Generator" for each project, after the Book Coordinator has completed their part of the form, but before the BC posts the results to the New Projects Launch Pad. You'd have to reprogram the generator to allow for a multi-stage process like that. Wouldn't Team Leaders then have to be given a separate level of access or be Admins themselves? This additional step would add a layer of back and forth that would make setting up a solo or group project take longer and be even more complicated.>
For existing audiobooks already in the Internet Archive (IA) Librivox collection, Team Leaders will submit the list of LOC subject headings with their book title to one of the designated Librivox ‘Admins’ who are authorized to update book records. <So the Team Leaders would need to comb through (or direct their team to comb through) all books on IA, and set up a list of subjects for each book? That makes sense (though it's a lot of work).>
The Admin will update all versions of that book in the collection, by adding the subject headings to the ‘Topics’ field. Any subjects already in the ‘Topics’ field will be deleted. <This is rather tedious data entry work, isn't it? I have to wonder whether it'll be easy to get enough volunteer Admins to do it.>
Management needs to revise the instructions above the Tags box in the New Project Template Generator, and may need to revise Help documents referring to that form. <There is no "Management" here. The Admins are our management. They're all volunteers. So this would fall on them too.>
If there's a way to have AI generate the subject headings automatically somehow, that would reduce the amount of work involved, because manually assessing each of the books on IA to determine which subject heading applies seems to me to be a lot of work that could take an awfully long time. Most of the volunteers on here are doing what they do because they enjoy it. I'm not sure how many librarians and indexers we have around who would embrace this kind of task, and I know from experience that volunteer management/engagement is not an easy feat.
Sorry to rain on your parade, Ted, but I think the process might need some more refining to be workable.
Cheers,
I spend much of my time growing and managing my website, a free online library that helps people find books and magazines at other sites on the web. Most links to books on my site are in the Internet Archive (IA) "Books to Borrow" collection. I use the hyperlinked topics on the IA books to lead my puny audience of less than 10,000 people per month to books on subjects they're interested in.
As a typical small website owner, I'm constantly tracking the volume of visits on all the pages of my site. It helps me improve the site and meet the needs of users. There are many software tools that enable website users to do that. I used one to which I subscribe, Ubersuggest, to do a brief analysis of the Librivox collection, looking a bit deeper into what at first glimpse appears to be a phenomenally successful organization, with 20 million views per month.
What I found was disturbing; that nearly all those 20 million views go to a tiny slice of the collection, and 90% of Librivox books are rarely heard by the public. The reason? Site visitors cannot access most of them.
The solution to the problem was obvious to me because the Internet Archive has already implemented it. They added hyperlinked LOC subject headings to most of the 4 million books in their "Books to Borrow" collection. That's 200 times as many books as Librivox has. Partly as a result of that project, traffic to books in that IA collection has gone from less than 1 million views per month 6 years ago to nearly 6 million per month now.
I'm not very familiar with the process Librivox uses to record books and post records, but I tried to imagine a process to duplicate in Librivox what Internet Archive is already doing. I was warned by longtime Librivoxers that I was wasting my time because managers are indifferent as to whether anyone listens to the books they create. But I've done what I see as my duty; exposed the problem and pointed out the proven solution. Management hasn't yet shown an interest in following up, but thus far around 1,500 people have read this thread and are now aware.