Hi all
(and Syd*: said flak duly noted copped; mea culpa)
I am always interested, as you know, in ways to provide people, customers,
("the public") with nature sound identifiers. The picture boards found now
in nature centers, which sing or call when you press buttons next to animal
pictures always attract the curious - but the people who I see using them
often seem to be either very young, (from whom curiosity has not yet been
dulled) or people who may already know all the sounds and are trying to get
others to learn or just to notice. I have mixed feelings about the
ubiquitous clocks.
I think I have found a new, for me, medium, and if you are interested,
please read on, and / or post other examples as you may wish.
But first a short history of a fun book (from which I can provide exerpts).
In 1976, as I am sure I may have posted before, a book came out written by
Dr. James D. Lazell, Jr, (whom everybody calls "Skip"). At the time, he
and I both taught science at a private high school in the Boston
area. Where Skip wrote the text, I provided all the B/W photos for the
book, entitled: "This Broken Archipelago - Cape Cod and the Islands
Amphibians and Reptiles."
Controversial in all circles, Skip is at once dedicated to defining and
saving endangered species of all flavors, and to educating the general
public on the subjects of nature study. He has many other books in print
(for which, see amazon or your favorite book searcher), but this particular
book, published by Quadrangle Press/ N Y Times Books, fell afoul of
politics not related to us, our doings or even the subject or content of
the book, and about which a whole chapter might some day be written.
The book, in short, was remaindered within a few weeks, NYTimes Books NEVER
even listed it among their books in print, despite very favorable reviews
in Science, Scientific American, local New England magazines and papers.
Teachers from all over southern Massachusetts had to write to a book
company warehouse in Trenton, NJ (?) to even purchase a copy, except for a
few on shelves of dedicated books stores on the Cape, especially in Woods
Hole and Chatham. The book has been out of print (if it ever WAS actually
in print) since about 1980. Demand for copies seems always to be high. [So
much for "the marketplace"].
Skip and I wrote and got the copyright back (in writing) and we have always
wanted to get the book reprinted, despite its being 27 years out of date.
Friends in the EPA tell me it was seminal in including the sea turtles
conceptually in the original ESA.
In the last three weeks, I have now undertaken that entire task myself,
from my original B/W photo print set, with the final result as an Acrobat
PDF file, soon to be sold on CDROM . . .and herein lies my suggestion for
nature sounds:
By placing all the photos in the text, then placing a small graphic "Play
Sound" button near each species of frog, the graphic can then be linked to
a WAV or MP3 file of the calling for that frog species. Conversion from
DOC book to PDF is then accomplished (you need to buy, own and install
Acrobat from Adobe, as I have, to be able to do this) by a single button
click, and you then send your customer a data CD with the PDF file and all
the necessary sound files in it. I really like the search and link
features of Acrobat readers, especially enhanced in Ver 6.0. I like the
extreme cross-platform market, as well.
I am grateful to Walt (and others) for suggestions in accomplishing this
task, and am sure I am not the first to use such a simple means of adding
strategic sounds to what was previously a paper book on nature.
I am posting this, because I welcome other instances and suggestions for
adding to the end user's ease of use. This is not strictly an "ebook" but
resembles them functionally.
As a bit of a technical note, I have made the book from one, huge DOC file
in MS Word. (version "Word 2002. (10.3416.3501) SP-1 - whatever THAT
means!) The final DOC file, with about 150 photos in it, printing to 190
pages on 8.5 x 11 paper, is about 30 megs. in size - not an easy DL for
dialups. Despite my having a long hate-filled history with many previous
versions of WORD, this one did the job quite handily.
my best regards,
Marty Michener
Hollis, NH http://www.EnjoyBirds.com
*And Syd, if you think I get flak for a joke about a political shrub, just
wait'll the group finds this mild recommendation of a Microsoft product on
this list! Oh, Boy! It isn't even a recommendation, exactly, just a "it
did the job" statement.
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