[Studiotalk] Digital Book Mark-up Questions

[Jon Lévy]

I guess now’s as good a time as any to make my debut, so… “Hi, all!”


1)       I have been assigning tags based on Specification 1203:2014 (Construction of Talking Books), but I have not been able to find a corresponding tag in ‘Appendix A. Books Structures and Class-Attribute Relations’ for some of the books parts (such as ‘about the author’).

2)       I was wondering which tag corresponds to “about the author”.

NLS spec 1202:2011 in section 3.4.3.1 says that “About the author” is to be read after the annotation and before the body of the text.  This implies that no mark is required.


3)       In general, when a tag that directly corresponds to part of a digital book cannot be found/does not exist, is a different tag used?

4)       Is there a default tag that should be used in these cases?

I have come to hate epigraphs simply because of the exact situation you’ve described.  The way we approach a solution is to…


1                     Strike off anything that is patently “wrong” (ex.: rule out any preliminary or concluding classes when the mark in question is in the body of the text).

2                     Determine which classes are the least-inaccurate descriptions, and…

3                     Determine which classes dovetail with the book’s overall nomenclature (ex.: level one navigation is divided into parts; level two, chapters; level three, sections; level four, subsections; etc.).

4                     If all else fails, use “unit” because one can defend its use by arguing “It’s a logical unit of information!”


In the spirit of full disclosure, have used “unit” exactly twice: once under LCM, once under Hindy ABC NLS, and both times were for demonstration purposes only.

I hope that helps.

                Jon Lévy
                JBI International, Inc.
                110 East 30th Street
                New York, NY 10016
                +1 (212) 889-2525 ext. 123
                www.jbilibrary.org

From: studiotalk <studiotalk-bounces at islemail.org> On Behalf Of Statz, David (MDE)
Sent: 2019-Apr-11 Thu 14:58
To: studiotalk at islemail.org
Cc: Statz, David (MDE) <David.Statz at state.mn.us>
Subject: [Studiotalk] Digital Book Mark-up Questions

Hello (again) everyone,

My name is David, and I work in the studio at the Minnesota Braille and Talking Book Library in Faribault, MN.

I had some questions about mark-up (more specifically, how to assign the tags) for digital books, and I was wondering how other network libraries handle the following tasks/situations/issues:

1)      I have been assigning tags based on Specification 1203:2014 (Construction of Talking Books), but I have not been able to find a corresponding tag in ‘Appendix A. Books Structures and Class-Attribute Relations’ for some of the books parts (such as ‘about the author’).

2)      I was wondering which tag corresponds to “about the author”.

3)      In general, when a tag that directly corresponds to part of a digital book cannot be found/does not exist, is a different tag used?

4)      Is there a default tag that should be used in these cases?
I would be very grateful for any information or suggestions anyone may be able to provide.

Thank you,


David Statz
Studio Director
507-384-6865  |  david.statz at state.mn.us<mailto:david.statz at state.mn.us>

Minnesota Braille and Talking Book Library
388 SE 6th Ave, Faribault, MN 55021-6340
education.mn.gov/btbl<https://education.mn.gov/MDE/fam/mbtbl/index.htm> | Library Catalog<https://webopac.klas.com/mn1aopac/> | MN BARD<https://nlsbard.loc.gov/login/MN1A>

[Braille and Talking Book Library]

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