[nabs-l] Accessible textbook legislation

Wed Feb 4 03:26:34 UTC 2009

Hi,
I'l tell you what happened to me here in Toronto. Be warned: don't let  
it happen to you.
1. I registered with my dso. They didn't tell me I had to register  
with another office until August. This office allows me to get books  
in an alternate format, so without my registration the process of book  
translation couldn't begin.
2. I figured I had to buy my books (sighted students do, why shouldn't  
we?) but assumed my dso advisor would find out what books I needed and  
begin the process of conversion over the summer. I wasn't told  
anything to the contrary.
3. I didn't find out what books I needed until I read my class's  
course outlines. I bought my books during the first week of class, and  
then the translation began.
4. As I am studying math, the Braille books began to arrive in  
October, just before Canadian Thanksgiving - two months into the  
school year. I am still receiving books, as they were translated in  
two different cities, one of which was in a different province.
5. As I couldn't properly study math for that time, I am still catching up.
YES, my friends, something national or international, or something at  
all, has to be done to improve this process. A lot of my trouble arose  
out of my lack of knowledge, which is totally unacceptable. This is  
what I recommend  to students now:
1. Find out ASAP what courses you will take.
2. Talk to your registrar and see if you can get signed up before  
anyone else. You're guaranteed a spot and therefore textbook  
production can begin.
3. Speak to the prospective professors or deans regarding the courses  
you wish to take, explain your accommodations, and ask for textbook  
information.
6. Buy the books, and submit them to whichever office you need to.  
Make sure they've been sent away as soon as possible.
I hope these things will help future students so your first year is  
not the disaster mine was.
As you can tell, I'm glad someone brought this up. lol
Thank you very much for reading my tyrade.
Sarah

Quoting "Nicole B. Torcolini" <ntorcolini at wavecable.com>:

> 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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