hello listers,

        If you rreceive e-text books on disket you know that many of them
are split up in to chapters, priliminary pages, contents pages, indicies,
appendicies, etc.  Each of the above sections of a books are stored on the
floppy or floppies as separate files.   We intend to do this with the longer
books that will be made available in the new Ibrc book bank.  the question I
pose to you all is when should we consider splitting up a book in the above
manner or in a manner similar to that.  for example the Bible can be devided
by individual books as has been done with blazie's Braillle copy of the king
James Version.  A reference work could be devided by letter.  Each section
of words that begin with a certain letter of the alphabet will be stored as
a separate file.  for example in a dictionary all entries beginning with the
letter A would be stored in one file.  All entries beginning with the letter
B will be contained in another file.  In the case of short stories each
story could be stored in it's own file unless the file size of the book is
very small.  Likewise plays could be devided up by acts with each act being
a separate file.

        the question is at what file size should we split up the books we
are translating.  Many workd can be left in one file that can be loaded in
to a Braille notetaker such as The Braille-N Speak, but unless the device
had a large amount of ram such as the Braille lite this is a must in order
to make large books usable by all blind people using many digferent kinds of
Braille, and Braille-aware devices.  How big should the files be before the
decision to split the work up in to smaller files is made?  your feedback on
this matter will help us develop some criteria to use in deciding to keep a
book as a single file or to devide it up in to smaller ones.  If any of you
have guidelines published by RFB&D and NLS and you can share them with me I
would appreciate that very much.  The work of translating is going along
very nicely and I will be getting a new computer shortly.  Once we are up
and running we will begin building the book bank.  thanks in advance for
your input on this matter.  take care and have a good weekend.file size

The power of the dream
The faith in things unseen
The courage to embrace your fear
No matter where you are
To reach for your own star
        To realize the power of the dream

"The Power of the Dream"
"Celine Dion"

Peter donahue