[Blindmath] Used Braille College Text Books

Wed Jun 20 19:09:30 UTC 2012

Something I forgot to mention in my earlier post - I have never
recommended audio math books. If reading is the best choice for a
blind student (and sometimes students with other reading
disabilities), then a live reader is the only viable option in my
view. This is because you can't ask questions of a recording, you
can't get a clarification. You can go back over a recording section
all you want, but if there is a mistake by the reader, a pronunciation
you can
't understand, you will never get it straightened out. But a live
reader can be asked to reread, can respond to statements like "that
just doesn't sound right to me," etc.

Dan

On 6/20/12, John Gardner <john.gardner at orst.edu> wrote:
> Neil, I apologize for my comment about Duxbury math.  A wise man never
> repeats unverified information, and I just proved I am not wise.  I am very
> happy to hear that Duxbury now does higher math correctly.
>
> John
>
> John
>
>
>
> -----Original Message-----
> From: blindmath-bounces at nfbnet.org [mailto:blindmath-bounces at nfbnet.org] On
> Behalf Of Neal
> Sent: Wednesday, June 20, 2012 6:48 AM
> To: 'Blind Math list for those interested in mathematics'
> Subject: Re: [Blindmath] Used Braille College Text Books
>
> I must correct, what I believe, is a misstatement of fact.
>
> Duxbury Systems invests a lot in  continuing development on the math
> braille
> front as Duxbury Systems works very closely with user and groups of users
> in
> multiple countries to constantly improve and refine our math braille
> quality.
> We have made great strides in the last two years in the continuation of
> over
> twenty years supporting math braille translation.
> I cannot comment on the quality of braille translation in products other
> than DBT WIN and Mega Dots.
> Those two products produce excellent braille math.
> Those two products support virtually every braille printer around as well
> as
> embedded tactile graphics in your braille document, If your embosser
> supports tactile graphics on the fly..
>
> DBT WIN version 11.1 sr4 does a very good job of translating math to
> braille
> in Nemeth, UEB, BAUK, and unified French braille math codes.
> You can also combine your selected braille math code with your language of
> choice.  That is how it is being used in India to create Hindi braille with
> Nemeth.
> It is used successfully in many nations around the world for braille math
> production at the elementary, high school, college, and university level.
>
> Duxbury systems has worked with Design Science and Mackichan Software to
> constantly improve the quality of braille translation and improve the
> ability to utilize inexpensive main stream math tools such as Math Type &
> Scientific Notebook as well as specialized products such as INFTY READER
>
> Sincerely,
> Neal Kuniansky
> Email: Neal at duxsys.com
> URL: http://www.DuxburySystems.com
> Duxbury Systems, Inc.
> The name for Braille since 1975.
>
> -----Original Message-----
> From: blindmath-bounces at nfbnet.org [mailto:blindmath-bounces at nfbnet.org] On
> Behalf Of John Gardner
> Sent: Tuesday, June 19, 2012 6:53 PM
> To: 'Blind Math list for those interested in mathematics'
> Subject: Re: [Blindmath] Used Braille College Text Books
>
> Okay, this discussion has finally gotten my temperature up a bit.  I can
> tell you that $50,000 to make a braille science book is not unusual.  I
> have
> heard of books that cost quite a bit more.  Why?  There are two reasons
> that
> braille books are expensive.  One is that, for whatever reason, it is
> commonly assumed that a braille reader must have a book that meets all BANA
> standards perfectly.  If you have ever read those standards you will
> understand that they can be met only if a great deal of human effort is
> devoted to preparing and proofing the text.  That costs a lot of money for
> any text and considerably more if the text has math, chemistry, etc.
>
> The second reason that braille science books are expensive is that only an
> expert (ie expensive) human being can transform the figures into acceptable
> tactile diagrams.  Which is why science books cost so very much more than
> non-science books.
>
> A company that turns out really good braille books has to charge a great
> deal of money - often $50,000 to $100,000 to translate a science bookd to
> braille.  Universities and non-profit agencies have the advantage of
> talented, low-cost student labor and/or volunteers to reduce costs
> considerably.
>
> The reason my temperature is going up is that if we took full advantage of
> modern technology, the cost of braille could be hundreds of dollars instead
> of tens of thousands of dollars.  Of course they would not be quite as
> perfect as BANA would wish, but they would be plenty good enough for any
> competent braille reader to read them.  Why isn't "good enough" not good
> enough?  I find it incomprehensible.
>
> Let me tell you how to make an inexpensive good-enough braille science
> book.
>
> 1. Transform the book to MS Word format.  It is usually easy to transform
> the regular text even if the book has to be scanned from paper copy and
> optically recognized.  Math may be recognized by Infty Reader if the book
> is
> not too "cute".  Otherwise a human being must re-enter math.  Entering the
> math may be the most costly part of the whole transformation process, but
> still it shouldn't cost more than a few hundred, or in the worst case some
> thousand dollars or so to do this.
> 2. If the math is simple, you can translate the document with Duxbury or
> with the ViewPlus Tiger Formatter.  Duxbury doesn't do too well on complex
> math, but the Formatter works well.  It uses liblouis as its translator,
> and
> Nemeth by liblouis is excellent.
> 3. Emboss it.  Now you have the text and math, and I can tell you that it
> is
> plenty good enough.  There are always some translation bugs, but as time
> goes on those get fewer and fewer.  For example, Susan Jolly recently
> pointed out to me that there is some incorrect spacing in liblouis Nemeth
> translation of trig.  Even so I could read it, and I'm not a good braille
> reader.
> 4. Use IVEO Creator Pro to input figures that need to be translated.
> Relatively little editing is needed for most physics, math, chemistry,
> computer science, electrical engineering figures.  Geology, biology, and
> other such figures may need a bit more editing.  When embossed and read by
> Iveo audio-touch, all labels are read aloud, making many figures accessible
> with no additional effort.  A human being should add annotations for any
> objects that are not obvious to the touch.  Few figures should take more
> than 15 minutes of time by a person who understands the subject matter.
>
> If you follow my recipe, a $100,000 advanced physics book may cost several
> thousand dollars to produce.  The student may notice some not-quite-correct
> formatting, but the braille translation should be near perfect.  And she
> would need to use a computer and IVEO Viewer to read the figures.  Isn't
> this "good enough"?
>
> John Gardner
>
> If one just puts a Word file into the Tiger Formatter, presses the button,
> and lets it translate, all text and math is translated "well enough".  Not
> perfect for two reasons.  One is that there still may be small bugs in the
> liblouis translator, for example, some spacing in the Nemeth braille is not
> quite right presently - something that Susan Jolly pointed out to me
> recently.  Fools me, because I don't know the braille rules perfectly so I
> didn't realize that the spacing was not quite what it should be.  Even
> though I am a poor braille reader I could read it.
>
> -----Original Message-----
> From: blindmath-bounces at nfbnet.org [mailto:blindmath-bounces at nfbnet.org] On
> Behalf Of Jordyn Castor
> Sent: Tuesday, June 19, 2012 2:46 PM
> To: Blind Math list for those interested in mathematics
> Subject: Re: [Blindmath] Used Braille College Text Books
>
> Hi all,
> I just want to throw this out there.
> I took Calc I last semester and my Resource Center for Person's With
> Disibilities produced the book for me. I was told it cost around $6000.
> The book was also high quality, with high quality graphics.
> They are also producing my Calc II and physics books for next year.
> It's crazy a company would charge 50-70,000 for a textbook.
> Jordyn
> On 6/19/2012 12:15 PM, Susan Mooney wrote:
>> The university needs to talk to other people.  Yes, there are budget
>> crappy transcribers out there.  The overwhelming majority of us are
>> professionals, however.  Braille Plus (www.brailleplus.net) is a
>> fabulous outfit which prides itself not only on accuracy and fast turn
>> arounds but they are a joy to work with and for.  Again, most
>> instructors are not going to use the entire text so it may be worth
>> getting only the portion of the books needed.  I can't imagine trying
>> to do physics and chem and math without braille.  I have transcribed
>> many level college texts w/o doing the entire book. It doesn't matter
>> if your son is the first or the 121st blind student.  The university
>> needs
> to get its butt in gear.
>>
>> SM
>>
>> On Tue, Jun 19, 2012 at 12:08 PM, Tammy Berg<tdberg72 at yahoo.com>  wrote:
>>
>>> Thank you everyone for your feedback and responses. After talking
>>> with the disability services department more, I was provided with the
>>> following information regarding where they received their pricing for
>>> the books being transcribed to Braille. My son will be the first
>>> blind student to attend their univesity so it's going to be a
>>> learning
> experience for all of us.
>>> They are offering audio books, readers, and scribes; however, we were
>>> really hoping to get the books in Braille so he can be more
>>> independent and have the material at his fingertips. We will continue
>>> to push for the Braille books.
>>>
>>> "The estimates were done by Arizona State University's Disability
>>> Services Office that does the work in-house for their students.   Others
>>> confirm that they deliver the
>>> highest quality produced at a reasonable cost.
>>> I have a list of other agencies that do Braille texts, but have been
>>> warned that not all are equal in quality or production time.  Most
>>> conversion agencies require one year in advance to convert texts to
>>> Braille.
>>>   College level science and math pose another challenge:  it is
>>> important that the agency employs converters that know the subject
>>> matter well enough to accurately convert it.
>>> The ASU estimates (sans two) for Fall 2012 semester were as follows:
>>> --Basics of Engineering Economy  = $18,000 (could be a "hybrid" for
>>> $8000)
>>> --Chemistry: The Molecular Nature of Matter = $55,000  (not cheaper
>>> as a hybrid due to more labor involved in making the text/images to
>>> audio with screen-reader) --University Physics = $72,000 (could be a
>>> "hybrid" for $38,000 if student is accustomed to listening to math)
>>> --Calculus = $71,000 (could be a "hybrid" for $40,000 if student is
>>> accustomed to listening to math)"
>>>
>>>
>>>
>>> ________________________________
>>>   From: Tammy Berg<tdberg72 at yahoo.com>
>>> To: "blindmath at nfbnet.org"<blindmath at nfbnet.org>
>>> Sent: Wednesday, June 13, 2012 1:50 PM
>>> Subject: [Blindmath] Used Braille College Text Books
>>>
>>> My son will be attending a private university in the fall and we have
>>> just been notified that they will not be able to provide his texts
>>> books in Braille due to the cost of $50,000-$60,000 per text that
>>> they were quoted for having them converted to Braille. Are there any
>>> resources for used Braille math and science college text books.
>>> The texts that he will be using in the fall are:
>>> Calculus, 6th Edition
>>> James Stewart
>>> ISBN-13978-0495011668
>>> Publiser: Brooks Cole
>>> Chemistry
>>> The Molecular View of Nature, 6th Edition Jespersen, Brady, Hyslop
>>> Publisher:  Wiley University Physics
>>> by Young&  Freedman 13th edition 2012
>>> Publishers: Addison&  Wesley
>>> Thank You - Tammy
>>> _______________________________________________
>>> Blindmath mailing list
>>> Blindmath at nfbnet.org
>>> http://nfbnet.org/mailman/listinfo/blindmath_nfbnet.org
>>> To unsubscribe, change your list options or get your account info for
>>> Blindmath:
>>> http://nfbnet.org/mailman/options/blindmath_nfbnet.org/tdberg72%40yah
>>> oo.com _______________________________________________
>>> Blindmath mailing list
>>> Blindmath at nfbnet.org
>>> http://nfbnet.org/mailman/listinfo/blindmath_nfbnet.org
>>> To unsubscribe, change your list options or get your account info for
>>> Blindmath:
>>>
>>> http://nfbnet.org/mailman/options/blindmath_nfbnet.org/susanannemoone
>>> y%40gmail.com
>>>
>>
>>
>
>
> _______________________________________________
> Blindmath mailing list
> Blindmath at nfbnet.org
> http://nfbnet.org/mailman/listinfo/blindmath_nfbnet.org
> To unsubscribe, change your list options or get your account info for
> Blindmath:
> http://nfbnet.org/mailman/options/blindmath_nfbnet.org/john.gardner%40orst.e
> du
>
>
> _______________________________________________
> Blindmath mailing list
> Blindmath at nfbnet.org
> http://nfbnet.org/mailman/listinfo/blindmath_nfbnet.org
> To unsubscribe, change your list options or get your account info for
> Blindmath:
> http://nfbnet.org/mailman/options/blindmath_nfbnet.org/neal%40duxsys.com
>
> ______________________________________________________________________
> This email has been scanned by the Symantec Email Security.cloud service.
> For more information please visit http://www.symanteccloud.com
> ______________________________________________________________________
>
>
> _______________________________________________
> Blindmath mailing list
> Blindmath at nfbnet.org
> http://nfbnet.org/mailman/listinfo/blindmath_nfbnet.org
> To unsubscribe, change your list options or get your account info for
> Blindmath:
> http://nfbnet.org/mailman/options/blindmath_nfbnet.org/john.gardner%40orst.e
> du
>
>
> _______________________________________________
> Blindmath mailing list
> Blindmath at nfbnet.org
> http://nfbnet.org/mailman/listinfo/blindmath_nfbnet.org
> To unsubscribe, change your list options or get your account info for
> Blindmath:
> http://nfbnet.org/mailman/options/blindmath_nfbnet.org/burke.dall%40gmail.com
>

-- 
Sponsor me in this year's National Federation of the Blind Race for
Independence!
Visit my Race Page at:

http://www.raceforindependence.org/goto/dan.burke

Dan Burke, President
Montana Association for the Blind,
An Affiliate of the National Federation of the Blind

My Cell:  406.546.8546