[nabs-l] Accessible textbook legislation

Robert Spangler spangler.robert at gmail.com
Tue Feb 3 16:57:01 UTC 2009


What is this NIMAS thing that they are using for secondary schools? 
Can't we work on the ability to use that?


Nicole B. Torcolini wrote:
> Excuse my language, but that is ridiculous. In my opinion, publishers of 
> textbooks should be required to provide colleges with an electronic copy of 
> the book that can be embossed or easily converted into either text or word 
> for those of us who read our books on our notetakers. At Stanford, I still 
> have to purchase my books, but the OAE usually either has their own to 
> destroy or has a file from the publisher. In one case, when the OAE could 
> not get the book in time, and I had mine before they did, I let them have my 
> book. However, I have never heard of this .mp3 process.
> 
> ----- Original Message ----- 
> From: "T. Joseph Carter" <carter.tjoseph at gmail.com>
> To: "NFBnet Blind Law Mailing List" <blindlaw at nfbnet.org>
> Cc: <nabs-l at nfbnet.org>
> Sent: Monday, February 02, 2009 8:26 PM
> Subject: [nabs-l] 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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