[nabs-l] Accessible textbook legislation

Robert Spangler spangler.robert at gmail.com
Wed Feb 4 21:07:31 UTC 2009


what state are you trying to change?  I would like to work on changing 
Ohio so if you would have any advice please share.


T. Joseph Carter wrote:
> Val pal,
> 
> I think I disagree about everybody winning with ichapters.  The 
> time-limited nature of the textbooks is, I think, the flaw.  That seems 
> like a great idea for a class that is not part of your major that you 
> would otherwise use for a class and then sell back to the bookstore, but 
> it does not really address books that you will use and retain for a 
> professional career.
> 
> I am in my second year of my graduate program and I would not sell more 
> than one of the textbooks I have purchased in the past two years because 
> I use them again and again.  The one book I would sell is one I would 
> happily be rid of, but I would replace it with another, similar textbook 
> that was written by someone who knew what they were talking about, as it 
> were.  *grin*
> 
> You know me though--this problem is fixable, and I will see it fixed one 
> way or another.  I've already started changing one university.  I am now 
> looking to change the state.  National standards are beginning to be 
> sought even by publishers since so many states now have different laws 
> with which the publishers must cooperate.  Because the laws are 
> different, publishers have begun seeking a national standard.  Not 
> enough that it's going to happen yet, of course, but it will happen 
> eventually.  We're not at critical mass yet, and if we get more state 
> laws, it'll happen sooner.
> 
> Joseph
> 
> On Tue, Feb 03, 2009 at 05:53:48AM -0600, Valerie Gibson wrote:
>> That is incredible that textbooks would be that bad, and here i
>> thought that the DSO office at my university was bad. I know this
>> doesn't help, but reguarding the publishers, and because i'm a fan of
>> IChapters now, i think all publishers should use IChapters. they still
>> get their money for the book; it's only useable up to a certain number
>> of days, it's accessible, and everyone wins. :)
>>
>>
>> On 2/3/09, T. Joseph Carter <carter.tjoseph at gmail.com> wrote:
>>> Nicole,
>>>
>>> Of course it is ridiculous.  That's the point, essentially.  If the
>>> publishers cannot or will not provide an accessible version of the
>>> text to the local DSO, the book should not be used.
>>>
>>> Providing the electronic book should be a prerequisite to ordering,
>>> not thing they can be asked for just prior to (or just after) the
>>> beginning of the term for a student who needs it.
>>>
>>> The publishers may not be able to meet that request with every book
>>> they circulate today--but they could sure enough do it for all future
>>> books if a few states start adopting such laws if they want to sell
>>> their textbooks to universities!
>>>
>>> Joseph
>>>
>>> On Mon, Feb 02, 2009 at 09:39:27PM -0800, 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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>>>>
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