[Blindtlk] Sign the petition to allow everyone access to e-books

[Danielsen, Chris]

Dear Fellow Federationists:

As many of you know, we are engaged in a campaign to obtain access 
for the blind and others with print disabilities to e-books available 
for Amazon's new Kindle 2 e-book reader. The new reader, which Amazon 
is working to make fully accessible to the blind, has the ability to 
use text-to-speech to read these e-books aloud; but under pressure 
from the Authors Guild, Amazon has announced that authors and 
publishers will be allowed to disable the text-to-speech function. 
The National Federation of the blind has joined with over twenty 
other organizations to create the reading Rights Coalition, which has 
set up an on-line petition to urge the Authors Guild and Amazon to 
reverse course. Please read and sign the petition here: 
<http://www.thepetitionsite.com/1/We-Want-To-Read>http://www.thepetitionsite.com/1/We-Want-To-Read

Please note: If you are using screen access technology, the first 
three fields on the form to sign the petition may not be announced. 
They are, in order: (1) a drop-down menu from which to select your 
prefix (Mr., Mrs., etc.); (2) an edit field for your first name, and 
(3) an edit field for your last name. the rest of the fields should 
announce themselves as you tab to them. If you still have trouble 
filling out the form, please send the following information to 
<mailto:readingrights at nfb.org>readingrights at nfb.org and we will be 
happy to sign on your behalf. You will need to send us your name, 
address, e-mail address, and any personal comments you would like to 
make about this issue. Thank you so much for your participation in 
this critically important effort.

Sincerely:

Chris Danielsen
Director of Public Relations
National Federation of the Blind

P.S. Once you have signed the petition, please be sure to forward the 
link to all of the contacts in your address book that you believe 
will support us in this cause.