[Dtb-talk] More on NLS and International Interlibrary loan

[Greg Kearney]

Australia, and this includes us in Western Australia have or are now converting entirely to DAISY digital talking book system and will, by the end of the year eliminated tapes all together. Many blind in Australia do not even own a tape player and even when we had tapes se did not employ the four track half speed system used in the United States.

In Western Australia we use the NLS style USB drive cartridge in VictorReader Stream library edition players we are also buying the NLS style player once it has been approved for export. We are the only library system outside of the U.S. to employ this system but we have some important differences:

1. Our books are not encrypted with DRM of any form. Audio is in standard MP3 format
2. Our DAISY titles are designed such that they can be played back on non-DAISY devices such as iPods We do this by ensuring the audio is named in playback order and also by providing playlists as part to the DIASY file sets.

OUr library is also somewhat unique in that part of it, books no longer protected by copyright, is open to the general public and anyone is free to download those books as they wish. We are also unique in that we produce works upon request along with our usual production system. So we maintain a list of books which we can produce and then ask users to request production of those titles they want. You can see this in action at http://www.guidedogswa.org/library/  

In the case where we got a book on tape today from another library our first action would be to digitise that copy and convert it to DAISY format for our users.

DAISY is the standard for much of the world including Canada the UK and scandinavia all of which have well developed talking book programs which no longer use tapes as a distribution medium. In Australia there are libraries in different states but users are able to join any library in any state so it is sort of a national system as well as regional one.


Gregory Kearney
Manager - Accessible Media
Association for the Blind of Western Australia
61 Kitchener Avenue, PO Box 101
Victoria Park 6979, WA Australia

Telephone: +61 (08) 9311 8202
Telephone: +1 (307) 224-4022 (North America)
Fax: +61 (08) 9361 8696
Toll free: 1800 658 388 (Australia only)
Email: gkearney at gmail.com

On 21/01/2010, at 7:41 AM, Tim Gillett wrote:

> As I understand it in the US, the NLS still very much supports the cassette format and provides clients with the NLS player. Access to the 4 track title in question just wouldnt be an issue. The clients already have the suitable cassette player provided free of charge.
> 
> The NLS is also well on the way to phasing in the new DTB system.
> 
> How does that compare with Western Australia, Greg?
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