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Blossoming of the eBook and What It Means to Blind and Visually Impaired PeopleBy: Nan Hawthorne
Summary:
What's the potential in ebooks and other accessible reading materials for blind or visually impaired people? They may just make the Internet the new bookstore and library for such readers. 
Is Print Dead?
"Talking Books" Virtual Bookstores eBooks for the Print Impaired Challenges to a Rosy Future Note Related Links Related Content Share your opinions with eSight Careers Network: Is Print Dead? Is print dead? Well, it may as well be as far as I'm concerned. The world of printed books and magazines are a memory for this avid reader and former double English Literature major but not for the reason implied by Ghostbusters' "Egon" -- that it is antiquated in the age of computers. My reason is that I simply cannot see print, even large print. The advent of electronic books brings a grateful smile to my face, not a sneer. What are electronic books? For the purpose of this article, I'll use a very broad definition. An electronic book is any book-length publication which requires access through electronic means. This includes a class of products not generally included in the term: books on records or tapes. I'm including these here because the availability of the latter has been enhanced considerably by the Web, making them doubly accessible to blind or visually impaired readers. In addition to audio records (a dying technology) and cassette tapes, the following materials are included here as "ebooks:"
The opportunity this might imply for all books to be available in an accessible format is, however, misleading. Numerous factors make this problematic. Publishers do not necessarily have complete texts in a single file that can be converted to an accessible format. There is no certain standard format yet determined to ensure that everyone can access the materials, a problem reminiscent of the Sony Beta vs. VHS competition as well as Microsoft DOS vs. the world. Another quite understandable concern of publishers is how to protect their profits (and, for that matter, the monetary stake of everyone from book authors to the bookstore owners and staff. Electronic files are far more easily copied and distributed than print books, and pirated ebooks could be a threat to the publishing industry. Nevertheless, the industry that produces ebooks is growing rapidly, and this bodes quite well for those individuals who cannot access print readily -- whether that be people with impaired vision or those with learning disabilities. The one group that may most benefit from this evolution in publishing are print impaired students. As I recall with some frustration, getting required texts for school into a format I could use can be difficult. There is no lack of means, but teachers, especially college professors, can be obstructive. I recall one class for which I'd obtained the syllabus three months before class started and had the books produced on cassettes in plenty of time, I thought. I went to the first session and discovered that the professor had added another book without informing me -- the first reading requirement on the syllabus! When I explained I would have to get the book recorded, the professor actually went to the administration and complained about me. The punch line for this story? The class was "Social Ethics." With ready download of all books on a course reading list, the need to plan so far in advance (arguably a problem for both the instructor and the student) would be obviated. Under those circumstances, I probably could have found the book the professor added to the assignments on the Internet and downloaded it, as well as all the other books I needed, immediately. I could have had immediate access to the materials. I could, in fact, have counted on equal opportunity to do the work and learn with every other student. Go to Top of Page "Talking Books" Of course, we all know that books for the blind are nothing new. Books in braille began to be published in the 19th century -- first in France and then in the rest of the world. The American Printing House for the Blind opened its doors in 1858. In the U.S., what has come to be known as the National Library Service for the Blind and Physically Handicapped began as Books for the Adult Blind Project in 1931. For recreational reading, these library services "for the blind" have been an imperfect solution, but, for educational and professional uses, they are not sufficient. The selection of books useful in academic and work settings is limited at best. And it is the nature of National Library Service (NLS) that you generally must wait for a book to be available. As a result, most blind people have turned to book recording services for these materials, including Recordings for the Blind and Dyslexic, Readings for the Blind, Volunteers of Vacaville and any of the many small generally volunteer book recording services (see Book Recording Services for Students, Employees). As my own college tale indicates, though, there is a wait, due to production requirements, for these materials as well. Computers and the Internet offer a growing potential for making all these books available for immediate download or, at worst, quick purchase. The two more traveled virtual roads are the growth of audio book stores online and the development of e-text. Go to Top of Page Virtual Bookstores One of the original success stories on the Internet is the story of "How Amazon.com Changed Everything." This virtual bookstore is arguably the first e-commerce site to really take off and the inspiration for many thousands of its successors -- from other virtual bookstores, such as Barnes and Noble which added the Internet to its already thriving brick and mortar empire, to small specialized but now global shops such as the Indian apparel site I frequent, Priyanka's, at Yahoo! Shopping. Because books started it, it's not surprising that audio books might be part of the virtual marketplace. Just as you can find a corner of any brick and mortar bookstore with audio-tape books, you can find these in virtual bookstores. Audio books can now also be found in stores dedicated entirely to them. There are even kiosks at transit centers with audio books for sale or rent. You can find basically identical sources online. The first commercially produced audio books tended to be abridged versions of popular and best-selling print books. As anyone who reads Talking Books knows, it takes a lot of mylar to record a book from beginning to end. The books were (and still are) recorded by professional narrators and even well-known actors, sometimes even by the authors themselves. As the sales of these books grew, publishers began to produce more titles, to offer titles in a greater range of subject areas, and to produce some full-length books. These items began to show up in public libraries as well, making their expense less daunting for readers. There are three categories of audio bookstores. I will refer to these categories as analog, analog plus and digital. Most online bookstores carry exclusively (or primarily) books in the analog category -- that is, books commercially recorded onto audiocassette tapes. These are, by far, the most familiar audio books for the average reader. Cassette books are being supplemented now in some online bookstores with books commercially recorded onto compact disc, which I'm calling "analog plus" to differentiate them from electronic files, although they are actually digitally recorded. The advantage of using CDs for audio books is obvious: One disc can contain an entire book. That's more attractive if you routinely drag books and a player around with you. The Internet has certainly made these bookstores more accessible. In the first place, there is no geographical restriction: Anyone can buy from any of these stores. Left to hoof it, many of us would never find (no less get to) an audio book store. Ordering can be a lot easier for someone who is blind or visually impaired, since the convenience of shopping at home is amplified by also being able to read the catalog or the "spines" of the books. But the Internet has another literary treat in store, literally and figuratively. You can download audio books (formatted for that purpose) directly from a web site. I noticed, for instance, that one web site, Booksontape.com, not only sells the cassette and CD versions of the books but also a downloadable MP3 audio file. Audio cassettes and CD audio books are very portable, and the players are ubiquitous. Virtually every blind or visually impaired person owns a cassette player or deck of some sort, and very likely has the NLS cassette book machine at his disposal. CD players are common, too, and computers equipped with a CD-ROM drive can also play compact discs. "A digital file downloaded from the Internet can readily be converted for use in a CD player with widely-available software," says James Tedford, editor of Radio Enthusiast. "Most CD burners come with software that can convert any kind of audio file to a format that a standard CD player can use." Portable players strictly for digital files are also becoming more available. "There are other devices that can play things in other formats, such as Windows Media Audio (WMA), RealAudio (RA), LiquidAudio (LQT) and ATRAC3 from Sony," explains Tedford, "but MP3 players are far and away more widely available." My local county library now loans out MP3 players with books already loaded on them. The players themselves range from about $75 to $500 and even come as part of the line of Casio digital watches. Because storage space and audio quality are what determines the cost of an MP3 player and voice requires considerably less space and bandwidth, you can safely go with the most economical choices. These ebook readers are free and can be downloaded from the web: Microsoft Reader 2.0 for PC/Laptop or Pocket PC Adobe(r) Acrobat eBook Reader(r) and Reader(r) Various Real.com audio players, including the new RealOne(r) Gemstar ebook, formerly known as the Rocket e-book Estari's 2-VU device Franklin eBookman These companies have Macintosh versions as well. For more about ebooks and players, check Amazon.com. About.com also covers portable ebook players. Radio Enthusiast's Tedford adds:
eBooks for the Print Impaired The audio book is not, however, the be-all and end-all of ebooks for the purposes of blind and visually or otherwise print-impaired readers. E-texts fill that need but are far less likely to be snatched up by sighted readers. That's where programs such as the DAISY Consortium and Bookshare.org come in. DAISY Consortium was formed to develop a single standard for producing books in an electronic format accessible for print-impaired readers. What it proposes (a system for easily navigating an ebook) not only mimics but surpasses the sighted reader's ability to skim through a book, to use a table of contents and index, and to skip whole sections, if he wishes. With straight audio, an individual at best might have tone indexing to help him find a specific section of a book, which is a tedious affair. But, with ebooks navigation, search and even the speed of the reading are instantly available to the user. DAISY is being developed with great flexibility in mind. You can use both audio and braille simultaneously, for example. Its potential applications will benefit more than just disabled readers. As the consortium suggests, "Imagine lectures that are available to students as audio and text files simultaneously. Or think about how synchronized text and audio would be valuable in teaching literacy or a foreign language." The trick will be getting DAISY established as the standard for all ebooks, a daunting goal due to corporate competition, proprietary software and hardware, and competing needs between the general public and the print impaired. Bookshare.org exemplifies an organization that both champions DAISY's goals and puts them into practice. What's new and special about Bookshare.org is that it offers e-text books (i.e. the text -- not a human voice reading the text). It uses the latest version of DAISY. Bookshare.org's unique contribution to the availability of ebooks is its vision for the community of print-impaired readers. Realizing that individuals were scanning books to convert them to text files for their own use, Bookshare.org's non-profit parent organization, Benetech, set out to create a central repository and distribution tool for these books. "This online community," says the Bookshare.org site, "enables book scans to be shared, thereby leveraging the collections of thousands of individuals who regularly scan books, eliminating significant duplication of effort." Bookshare.org's offerings are e-texts. They are text files in the digital DAISY format instead of books read aloud by a reader as in audio files. The e-texts are, therefore, usable with screen magnification, screen readers, and braille output devices and have the navigability of the DAISY format. The books are scanned by volunteers and staff with software that converts the digital image from the scanner into true text with optical character recognition (OCR) software. Volunteers and staff then proof the scans for accuracy as well as correct spelling and punctuation. Bookshare.org is able to get around the issue of copyright law by taking advantage of an exemption for books made accessible for use by those with print impairments. Would-be readers must submit proof of print-related disability (including blindness, physical disability or learning disability). That can be done by submitting paperwork signed by a qualified professional or requesting that Bookshare.org verify receipt of NLS services. There is a set up fee and an annual dues for membership to cover the costs of the services provided by Bookshare.org, which acts more like a bookstore than a library. Bookshare.org is young and growing. It is constantly improving its tools and building its collection. Many books (that are not copyrighted) can be downloaded by anyone. Members can find books by category (such as Business and Finance, Professional and Technical, Computers and Internet, and Reference) as well as by section (such as nonfiction and fiction for students and career people and for recreational use), author and title. Books are available instantly with Internet download and with software provided upon joining. Recently Recordings for the Blind and Dyslexic (RFB&D) has begun to make e-audio books available for print-impaired users. Its AudioPlus section concentrates on textbooks at this point. According to RFB&D:
Alison Lingane, senior product manager for Bookshare.org, points out that you can listen to text "using voice synthesis (with) the Victor Reader Soft we provide our members or other programs such as Kurzweil or OpenBook or WYNN." The Victor Reader Soft can also be used with other access software and hardware. The NLS is itself developing ebooks for distribution to its patrons. As a tax-supported institution, the NLS must find ways to keep expenses in hand. Audiocassettes, themselves more economical than the old records it still uses, are expensive, labor intensive, and bulky. They require a tremendous amount of storage space, and their quality deteriorates with use. Electronic text is extremely economical, particularly when it is stored as a digital file for download via a web site. At most, resources must be spent on distribution of CDs. At best, the entire library can reside on a server linked to a web site. The cost is a tiny fraction of what hard-copy books cost the NLS to provide. NLS is aiming at 2008 to start offering its collection in a digital format. (Both Japan and Sweden already have such programs.) NLS's "Digital Talking Book" will require a special player and contain only human voice recordings. One interesting development the NLS has in place, however, is Web-Braille. NLS notes:
For example, when I was taking web design classes from the now-defunct ZDU, about half my books were available for download in PDF format. While not all PDF files are readily used with screen readers (see Note below), the books I received through ZDU were. Needless to say, I read more of those books than I did the print ones, which I had to obtain through the mail. The convenience was equaled by the generally comparable prices of these books -- and there was no shipping and handling! That I specifically wanted the books not to have a physical reality but exist only as kilobytes of information so I could use my adaptive software just sweetened the deal as far as I am concerned. If you are unsure which of the many existing and emerging formats for ebooks would work best for you, you may find "Which Format to Choose" on the National Braille Press web site helpful. Anna Dresner is the author of "Finding eBooks on the Internet," a book available from the National Braille Press. The book, for sale in braille, large print and soon as a digital ASCII file, is a comprehensive and extremely practical guide. Many sources are listed, and how to find and access their e-text offerings is spelled out in detail for those who need the extra help. Dresner is pleased about the development of e-text but would be happier still, she says, "if commercial publishers put all books in accessible formats and if devices that could access these books and meet the needs of all readers were available from a variety of sources at competitive prices." Only then will perhaps the full promise of ebooks be realized for students and career people as well as anyone with a print impairment. Go to Top of Page Challenges to a Rosy Future Why are ebooks becoming more available? Like many other products adopted by blind or visually impaired people, such as the talking watch, commercially available audio and ebooks began as a product intended for sighted people's use. The watch was a toy, but people who are not print impaired and who can access print books by definition, also do something else a blind or visually impaired person cannot do: drive a car. Listening to audio books has become a favorite pastime for commuters, allowing them entertainment and productive use of otherwise empty time on the road. Due to this wide-spread use by commuters, audio books have become a part of many people's lives. As the Web has grown, other electronic formats have joined the audio book in popularity. The fact that the initial and larger market for electronic books consists of people who are sighted and not print impaired presents both an opportunity and a challenge for the proliferation of books accessible to us as disabled readers. Clearly the market's growth will expand the number and breadth of titles we can easily access. But the divergent needs of the two groups also pose a threat. For instance, while a sighted person may prefer a light and possibly abridged audio book to "read" while driving, a visually impaired person may need weightier books available in full and as e-text. Publishing companies will likely concentrate on providing the more profitable audio books. They are, after all, in business to make, not lose, money. Even within the industry of "books for the blind," the lack of a single standard for e-audio and e-text may inhibit their usefulness. Bookshare.org is part of the growing movement to set a standard for e-text and e-text delivery. If the DAISY Consortium can draw all ebook producers into their standard, the industry could gain some uniformity. This was the key to the success of FM radio, which at first was transmitted in many different formats and required different receivers. FM radio only took off when one standard was adopted for all broadcasters and listeners. Today, ebooks require that same consistency. A challenge that is rarely mentioned in talking about the advancement of products and services for blind or visually impaired people is the tendency to equate "blind" with "poor." This is as large a problem for blind people themselves as for other community members. The expectation still exists that any product or program "for the blind" must be available at no cost. The perception is heightened by the high prices many manufacturers charge their most consistent clients, the rehabilitation agencies who ostensibly have deeper pockets. These paired influences inhibit the development of commercially produced, widely available and affordable products such as ebooks. Further, it permeates the culture so much that even those who can afford services (such as those offered by Bookshare.org at a nominal fee) appear to regard the expense as unwarranted. "The big picture and long-term solution to this issue is to have all books available in accessible formats for sale," states Bookshare.org's Lingane. "That would really level the playing field." She adds:
"MS Reader is perfectly accessible and many sites such as the Electronic Text Center at the University of Virginia provide accessible ebooks in this format, yet most ebooks published in this format, such as those at Fictionwise, which has quite a significant blind following, are inaccessible because publishers demand the highest security be set, and this setting locks out the text-to-speech component which allows access to the ebook. "Some publishers claim that TTS access is even a copyright infringement, since it produces a sound presentation of their book which violates the copyright on the audio book rights, maintained and sold separately from the print book rights. If anything ends up killing accessible ebooks, it will be DRM, and it does threaten to get worse." I will only add that it will be up to blind and print-impaired readers to use their power as a market sector and make development of such a device worth some company's investment. Money talks: Get out there and ask for e-text reading devices! It is up to us. Go to Top of Page Note PDF files are often a topic of frustrated discussion among blind readers. Kabootle describes the situation with this comment:
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