[nabs-l] Accessible textbook legislation

Tue Feb 3 23:04:48 UTC 2009

One thing: it's a good rule of thumb to buy 2 copies of all your books you 
know aren't available from RFB and D or Bookshare, so you can scan one and 
use one with your readers.  I always bought mine at the same price as other 
students from the college bookstore, although I bought them used, as long as 
there wasn't any handwriting, I. E. former students' notes, in them.

Serena

----- Original Message ----- 
From: "Robert Spangler" <spangler.robert at gmail.com>
To: "National Association of Blind Students mailing list" 
<nabs-l at nfbnet.org>
Sent: Tuesday, February 03, 2009 11:55 AM
Subject: Re: [nabs-l] Accessible textbook legislation

> That is similar to the process that occurs here in that I buy the books 
> and take them to the office.  I am able to do this a month in advance so 
> they usually have the books ordered from the publishers but I still 
> shouldn't have to pay that retail price for a book when I'm getting it 
> electronically.  Electronic books should be cheaper.  Often, however, the 
> publishers don't respond in a timely fassion and they mess up.  So yes 
> there needs to be better legislation.  If they have to chop up my book, 
> either because they don't have it in their database or the publisher isn't 
> cooperating, they do not rebind it and I am unable to return it.  I am 
> still waiting for my Spanish textbook and the contact I was given at the 
> publisher is not answering or getting back with me.
>
> Robby
>
> T. Joseph Carter wrote:
>> 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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