[blindlaw] Accessible textbook legislation

Tue Feb 3 22:35:39 UTC 2009

Good points. Bookshare.org has converted thousands of books to daisy format.
Chuck
----- Original Message ----- 
From: <b75205 at gmail.com>
To: "Russell J. Thomas; Jr." <rjtlawfirm at yahoo.com>; <blindlaw at nfbnet.org>
Sent: Tuesday, February 03, 2009 12:19 PM
Subject: Re: [blindlaw] Accessible textbook legislation


> Hold your horses, this is already done. Books are made today for the 
> California market, they are made to be converted to daisy format. Even 
> trade publishers are required to do this work. The books exist. By the way 
> you are probably stealing copyrights by cutting up books like that.
>
> The main problem with accessibility is that everyone thinks they have to 
> reinvent the solution, when the problem is that your state IT people do 
> not  know what is out there, do not care and have no incentive to find out 
> what  is out there in the market. The re-inventing accessibility is a 
> serious  time waster and waster of resources. Forms designed by the state 
> are  extremely expensive and there really is no reason to waste this 
> money.
>
> Choose publishers who have converted the books to daisy format.
>
> Most of them do this now. It is required under the law. Also there are 
> organizations that are converting books to daisy format there is on in 
> Lousiana that is converting text books. By the way, these books are free.
>
> The major problem with text books are tests. Questions and answers. That's 
> where you will find your problems. The solutions to tests are a bit more 
> complex and way beyond the abilities of your state IT people who are 
> cutting up books.
>
> By the way you can make daisy formated documents using Word or InDesign.
>
> James Pepper
>
> On Feb 3, 2009 10:21am, "Russell J. Thomas, Jr." <rjtlawfirm at yahoo.com> 
> wrote:
>> You might find the following URL helpful, although it appears that the
> site
>>
>>
>> may not have been updated for a while.
>>
>>
>>
>>
>>
>> www.tsbvi.edu/textbooks/
>>
>>
>>
>>
>>
>> -----Original Message-----
>>
>>
>> From: blindlaw-bounces at nfbnet.org [mailto:blindlaw-bounces at nfbnet.org] On
>>
>>
>> Behalf Of T. Joseph Carter
>>
>>
>> Sent: Monday, February 02, 2009 8:27 PM
>>
>>
>> To: NFBnet Blind Law Mailing List
>>
>>
>> Cc: nabs-l at nfbnet.org
>>
>>
>> Subject: [blindlaw] Accessible textbook legislation
>>
>>
>>
>>
>>
>> Hi all,
>>
>>
>>
>>
>>
>> We're getting ready for our state legislative seminar here in Oregon
>>
>>
>> and I suggested to my state president that the problem of accessible
>>
>>
>> textbooks here in Oregon is abysmal at best. He thinks he knows who
>>
>>
>> I should talk to here in Oregon about that, if I can get a good
>>
>>
>> example of textbook legislation to work from. This is, I realize, a
>>
>>
>> national problem. Some universities solve it well enough, but the
>>
>>
>> closest to that at an Oregon university is the direct result of my
>>
>>
>> intervention.
>>
>>
>>
>>
>>
>> I'd like to push my state to adopt accessible textbook standards. Is
>>
>>
>> there a good template out there from which I can work? I am told
>>
>>
>> California does not allow its universities to use textbooks that
>>
>>
>> cannot be obtained in an accessible electronic format. That might be
>>
>>
>> a good starting place. *grin*
>>
>>
>>
>>
>>
>> While I am sure readers on this list and over on nabs-l (Cc'd) are
>>
>>
>> aware of what I mean by abysmal, I'll describe the standard process
>>
>>
>> used here in Oregon anyway:
>>
>>
>>
>>
>>
>> 1. Students buy the books at retail price (hundreds of dollars).
>>
>>
>> Books cannot be purchased early, and must be carried several blocks
>>
>>
>> to the DSO.
>>
>>
>> 2. Students deliver their books to their university's DSO.
>>
>>
>> 3. The DSO sends the book to the university print shop to cut up the
>>
>>
>> book.
>>
>>
>> 4. The cut book is returned to the DSO.
>>
>>
>> 5. The DSO scans the book using a B&W xerox machine at about 150 dpi.
>>
>>
>> 6. These scans are fed into an antiquated version of OCR software
>>
>>
>> such as ABBYY FineReader.
>>
>>
>> 7. ODS sends the book out to be "rebound" with a plastic comb.
>>
>>
>> 8. The poorly OCR'd text is edited by hand at least a little bit, in
>>
>>
>> theory.
>>
>>
>> 9. These lightly edited poor OCRs of textbooks are read using a
>>
>>
>> "natural" voice into mp3 files.
>>
>>
>> 10. The student must come to the DSO to collect their mangled
>>
>>
>> textbooks and mp3 CDs, usually about the third week of an 11 week
>>
>>
>> quarter.
>>
>>
>>
>>
>>
>> The process often _begins_ the first day of the term, because books
>>
>>
>> are not available any sooner than that.
>>
>>
>>
>>
>>
>> The mp3 CDs are next to useless since they are computer-read versions
>>
>>
>> of badly scanned text, full of errors and lacking anything resembling
>>
>>
>> interpretations of diagrams. The printed books come back with pages
>>
>>
>> missing, out of order, torn, and otherwise destroyed. I am told that
>>
>>
>> my DSO spends an average of four hours editing a moderately sized
>>
>>
>> textbook once scanned, and the new person who spends the four hours
>>
>>
>> produces significantly better output in that time frame than her
>>
>>
>> predecessor, but it's still pretty bad no matter how you look at it.
>>
>>
>>
>>
>>
>> The cost to the university is more than a day's pay for someone per
>>
>>
>> book. The student's cost is several hundred dollars in destroyed
>>
>>
>> books, and this is standard policy at five higher educational
>>
>>
>> institutions I am aware of in my state.
>>
>>
>>
>>
>>
>> One of these is developing better policies based on my efforts, but
>>
>>
>> the better policies are meeting with lukewarm reactions by students
>>
>>
>> because as bad as the current system is, it doesn't involve waiting a
>>
>>
>> month for the publishers to finally respond that they don't have or
>>
>>
>> won't provide the textbook in question.
>>
>>
>>
>>
>>
>> And while some might argue that a blind student should be responsible
>>
>>
>> for scanning their own books, a more-than-full-time student does not
>>
>>
>> often have that luxury. When you consider the reading volume
>>
>>
>> required for graduate studies, that's just not feasible. Publishers
>>
>>
>> will not provide electronic copies to students, only to DSOs, only
>>
>>
>> when a student who needs it has registered for the class and
>>
>>
>> purchased a book and not always even then.
>>
>>
>>
>>
>>
>> This must stop. The publishers should be routinely providing
>>
>>
>> electronic copies to DSOs as soon as they receive book orders so that
>>
>>
>> the electronic books are available to the DSO immediately to begin
>>
>>
>> doing whatever they need to in order to adapt the book from a clean,
>>
>>
>> correct, digital source.
>>
>>
>>
>>
>>
>> With the right pointers, I intend to do all that I can to make sure
>>
>>
>> it stops here in Oregon. Any help would be greatly appreciated.
>>
>>
>>
>>
>>
>> Thanks,
>>
>>
>>
>>
>>
>> Joseph
>>
>>
>>
>>
>>
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