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Select one of these 5 digital audio books you would like to explore! |
Dr. DeMarco Answers Your Questions (Text and Recorded Voice) |
Arly and Spike (Text and Recorded Voice) |
Haida Gwaii Vision Quest (A SuperNatural virtual world) |
Sex: Especially For Teenagers (Text with Music Soundtracks) |
Take Charge of Your Body (Text with Music Soundtracks) |
Check out these audio lectures by Dr. Carolyn DeMarco
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"Everthing You Ever Needed To Know About Women's Health", By Carolyn DeMarco MD
This CD-ROM is a signature work. All the designing, formatting, and coding, was developed and written by one individual, Doug Toner, Digital Research and Development Director, for Well Woman Press. Doug explains the objectives and results in putting together this CD-ROM in this edited transcript. The Objectives: 1. To provide important and concise content on women's health. 2. To demonstrate some simple but effective ways to digitally publish the printed word so that it mirrors the printed hard copy and produces a digital publication that works in conjunction with the paper one. 3. To develop methods and procedures to build a model that is truly cost effective in taking any printed work and "milling" it to create a flexible but standardized pre-formatted digital publication. 4. To then take this digital publication and add full indexed and on-demand audio (that worked in unison with the text) to create a final model of a "standardized digital audiobook". The Results: The digital pages for the book, Take Charge of Your Body by Dr. Carolyn DeMarco, presented on this CD-ROM, is an example of a digital publication and are (literally) digital renditions of each numerical printed page. Content present on each page of the printed book is the content on each digital page. The digital pages for Doctor DeMarco's new book, Doctor DeMarco Answers Your Questions, is an example of standardized digital audiobook incorporating an audio index, on-demand text to recorded audio and automatic text scrolling. Using these models any publishing house could now manufacture digital titles created on time, within budget, and (for the most part) in house using existing staff. These digital titles would also satisfy the consumer's desire for value and selection by providing a abundance of excellent content at a fair price. The Transcript "The initial decision in 1996 to do this project came out of a frustration caused by the lack of good digital content available anywhere, (online or off), compared to what was easily available in a local bookstore. It seemed that the global digital library building was like a tall skyscraper with only a small part of the first floor being used and consisting of a limited selection of topics with a lot being merely catalogs of stuff to buy." "Adding to that frustration were websites with their information buried in databases (making them inaccessible to search engines) and endless web pages of brochure information. Combine these frustrations with a retail market comprised of sometimes expensive general information CD's, Let's Learn CD's and endless games and it seemed obvious that you had the makings of a problem to be solved. Accessible good content provided for a realistic price." "There's probably hundreds of thousands of CD audio titles out there but in comparision very few CD-ROM or DVD titles yet there's probably much more good text content then audio content. I know that an audio CD is much more versatile you can play it in your car, on the street, or swap it with a friend or even trade or sell it easily but this does not rectify the glaring availability of titles between them." "Considering the present costs and sometimes cumbersome specialized methods of producing a digital version of an existing printed work, what I felt was needed were simple but effective ways to take the content and cost-effectively code, index and format it. Then it could be presented digitally (using a standard Internet browser) and still retain a strong reference link to the original printed work. "Adobe Acrbat using the PDF format works somewhat but the navigation, indexing and general look is limited and sometimes cumbersome when used extensively." After all, most of the printed word is basically text inked on numeric paper pages, but containing a wealth of remarkable information that we use on a daily basis. What I wanted was a way to access and present all this content digitally but at a reasonable cost." "Just like you can buy an audio CD for 10 to 30 dollars with a seemingly endless list of titles, why can't you have the same choice at the same price using the almost same technology for the printed word." "By cost effectively taking the printed word and digitizing it into a flexible standardized format then the resulting content could then be distributed retail via CD-ROM (or any other digital storage device) at a competitive price or placed on the Internet and sold via subscription or as downloadable files." "Because many people learn and absorb information better using their ears, I decided to go a step further and added on-demand fully indexed audio to the text content. In doing so, a new understanding of what a "standardized digital audiobook" emerged. Thanks to a new programming language called "smil" (Synchronized Multimedia Integration Language) and the people at Real Networks who provided the RealPlayer-7, I felt true audio-on-demand could be produced. What I envisioned in this "digital audiobook" was text and audio working in unison (audio text scrolling), with easy accessibility, (all contained within a Web browser) with the ability to use the printed book in conjunction with the digital content. The result would be a final product that would let the user both hear and read the content easily and at a very reasonable cost." "So here's the bottom line on this CD-ROM. What I've created here is a demonstration CD-ROM of what a standardized digital publication and digital audiobook could look like." "I hope that you like what I have presented to you. But, more importantly, that you have used the information contained in this CD-ROM to become more informed about Women's Health Issues." End Transcript "Mainstream medicine all too often does not inform us about, nor provide help for, important health concerns of women. So, take what you have learned here to your doctor because, you may never know what the doctor knows, and you might need to know what the doctor doesn't know".
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Comments? e-mail to: wwp@demarcomd.com |
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