[Blindmath] Availability of college level math text books in Braille, sufficient to recommend it as something to check?

Ken Perry kperry at blinksoft.com
Fri Jul 15 13:29:23 UTC 2011


I don't disagree that Braille and layout is probably better.  I just found
the books I used were well described.  Now I did  have a friend that used
another book and he let me listen to it.  It was as bad as Sina points out.
I think it is luck of draw when it comes to RFBD or learning what liars say
or is it learning a lie or whatever their name is now.

ken

ken

-----Original Message-----
From: blindmath-bounces at nfbnet.org [mailto:blindmath-bounces at nfbnet.org] On
Behalf Of Sina Bahram
Sent: Friday, July 15, 2011 9:18 AM
To: 'Blind Math list for those interested in mathematics'
Subject: Re: [Blindmath] Availability of college level math text books in
Braille, sufficient to recommend it as something to check?

I'm glad to hear they were helpful to Ken. I found them to be one of the
most frustrating and absolutely irritating mediums of
transferring information ever devised when it comes to discussing
mathematics.

Matrices were often read with no respect to row/column, figures were
described with respect to color, as if that matters when the
question simply want you to find the minimum of a graph, certain Greek
symbols were mispronounced which sounds minor except when you
realize that there is a huge difference between how people in class/papers
say it, and how your reader does, etc. etc.

I'll take Braille, only in math/science, over audio any day of the week.

For everything else, I'm perfectly happy to listen to my screen reader at
speeds tripling all my peers, but for mathematics, I'm
equally happy to consume the information at one third of my peers, if it at
least means getting it mostly correct. Although sadly,
braille books are also littered with mistakes.

Take care,
Sina



-----Original Message-----
From: blindmath-bounces at nfbnet.org [mailto:blindmath-bounces at nfbnet.org] On
Behalf Of Ken Perry
Sent: Friday, July 15, 2011 9:00 AM
To: 'Blind Math list for those interested in mathematics'
Subject: Re: [Blindmath] Availability of college level math text books
inBraille, sufficient to recommend it as something to check?

 I used rfbd for all my college math books.  The calculus one at the time
was one edition behind the one we were using in school.  The cool thing
about the reader of  my calculus book was he was obviously some math wizard
because he corrected a few of the examples and one of the graphs.
Unfortunetly not all readers are this great at RFBD but you can find a lot
of math books recorded.

Ken

-----Original Message-----
From: blindmath-bounces at nfbnet.org [mailto:blindmath-bounces at nfbnet.org] On
Behalf Of Lisa Bongiorno
Sent: Friday, July 15, 2011 7:36 AM
To: Blind Math list for those interested in mathematics
Subject: Re: [Blindmath] Availability of college level math text books
inBraille, sufficient to recommend it as something to check?

I deal with students from age 3 months to 18 (or 21 depending the age
they graduate from High School).  I am assuming it's more difficult for
college students to find and retrieve college books.   Does Bookshare,
NIMAC, and Learning Ally offer college books?  What about ShareBraille
at NFB?  I have posted some of my academic Braille books - especially
math and science on ShareBraille.  I don't have the space to store some
of the books I retrieve, and I hate to throw them out. So I post them in
hopes that someone else could use them. 
Lisa

--Original Message-----
From: blindmath-bounces at nfbnet.org [mailto:blindmath-bounces at nfbnet.org]
On Behalf Of Steve Jacobson
Sent: Thursday, July 14, 2011 5:21 PM
To: Blind Math list for those interested in mathematics
Subject: Re: [Blindmath] Availability of college level math text books
inBraille, sufficient to recommend it as something to check?

Birkir,

I would suggest APH because I believe their "Louis" database tracks
textbooks that are being transcribed around the country.  There are
still agencies who 
have volunteers transcribing textbooks in braille.  For example, the
Communication Center in Minnesota State Services for the Blind still
doesit, at least they 
do when our state government isn't shut down because of a budget fight.
I could be wrong but I don't think National Braille Press does
specialized 
textbooks.

Best regards,

Steve Jacobson

On Thu, 14 Jul 2011 20:48:59 +0000, Birkir R. Gunnarsson wrote:

>Hi all

>The Youth Slam lecture construction has certainly drawn my attention
>to various issues I had not thought off previously (a god thing, I
>suppose).
>One such is whether to even suggest inquiring through APH, National
>Braille Press or others for hardcopy versions of math text books in
>Braille.
>For one thing I have a calculus braille book 800 pges print, in 3
>boxes and need our storage space to keep boxes I amnot using, so this
>is very impractical.
>For another, I simply do not know if there s sufficient quantity
>available of books to suggest students try this.
>Either way I am listing it as a last resort, behind elecronic files
>from Publishers, InftyReader scanning of hard or electronic files,
>using readers and checking with RFB&D (Learning Ally) and Bookshare.

>If anyone has any comments on this, I'd be happy to see 'em.
>Thanks
>-Birkir
>p.s. great discussion threat on how to perform transformations and
>calculations, I will incorporate all suggestions into the eventual
>presentation.

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