[Nfb-krafters-korner] A Possible Source for directions and patterns?

[Marianne Denning]

I tried to sign up but I coldn't understand the audio that I needed to type. 
It seems like those are always hard to understand.  I guess I will wait 
until my husband gets home tonight and try again.  It sounds interesting.

Marianne Denning
----- Original Message ----- 
From: "Dixie" <blueherons at sbcglobal.net>
To: "'List for blind crafters and artists'" <nfb-krafters-korner at nfbnet.org>
Sent: Friday, May 07, 2010 1:52 PM
Subject: [Nfb-krafters-korner] A Possible Source for directions and 
patterns?


> Project puts 1M books online for blind, dyslexic
> By BROOKE DONALD, Associated Press Writer Brooke Donald, Associated Press
> Writer
> Thu May 6, 11:14 am ET
>
>
> .SAN FRANCISCO - Even as audio versions of best-sellers fill store shelves
> and new technology fuels the popularity of digitized books, the number of
> titles accessible to people who are blind or dyslexic is minuscule.
>
> A new service being announced Thursday by the nonprofit Internet Archive 
> in
> San Francisco is trying to change that. The group has hired hundreds of
> people to scan thousands of books into its digital database - more than
> doubling the titles available to people who aren't able to read a hard 
> copy.
>
> Brewster Kahle, the organization's founder, says the project will 
> initially
> make 1 million books available to the visually impaired, using money from
> foundations, libraries, corporations and the government. He's hoping a
> subsequent book drive will add even more titles to the collection.
>
> "We'll offer current novels, educational books, anything. If somebody then
> donates a book to the archive, we can digitize it and add it to the
> collection," he said.
>
> The problems with many of the digitized books sold commercially is that
> they're expensive, they're often abridged, and they don't come in a format
> that is easily accessed by the visually impaired.
>
> The collections are also limited to the most popular titles published 
> within
> the past several years.
>
> The Internet Archive is scanning a variety of books in many languages so
> they can be read by the software and devices blind people use to convert
> written pages into speech. The organization has 20 scanning centers in 
> five
> countries, including one in the Library of Congress.
>
> "Publishers mostly concentrate on their newest, profitable books. We are
> working to get all books online," Kahle said.
>
> Marc Maurer, president of the National Federation of the Blind, says 
> getting
> access to books has been a big challenge for blind people.
>
> "Now, for the first time, we're going to have access to an enormous
> quantity," he said.
>
> Maurer, who is blind, said that when he was in college, he hired people to
> read books to him because the Braille and audio libraries were so limited.
>
> "That has been the way most students have gotten through school," he said.
> "This kind of initiative by the Internet Archive will change that for many
> people."
>
> Only about 5 percent of published books are available in a digital form
> that's accessible to the visually impaired, Maurer said, and there are 
> even
> fewer books produced in Braille.
>
> Ben Foss, a San Francisco man with dyslexia, says having so many more 
> books
> available is liberating. He compares it to a million more ramps being 
> added
> throughout a city for a person who uses a wheelchair.
>
> "For me, it's about access. They have provided flexibility and freedom to
> get books in a format that I use every day," said Foss, 36, who is the
> director of access technology in the digital health group at Intel Corp.
>
> The digitized books scanned by the Internet Archive will be available for
> free to visually impaired people through the organization's website. The
> organization does not run into copyright concerns because the law allows
> libraries to make books available to people with disabilities, Kahle said.
>
> Jessie Lorenz, an associate director at the Independent Living Resource
> Center San Francisco who has been blind since birth, said it has been hard
> to find controversial or edgy titles in a format she can use, and choices
> are often dictated by institutions or service groups who have selected
> certain books for scanning.
>
> "For individuals living with print-related disabilities, this is
> groundbreaking," she said. "This project will enable people like me to
> choose what we read."
>
> Lorenz, 31, has already decided what she wants: Howard Stern's 
> autobiography
> "Private Parts," Andrew Weil's "The Natural Mind," and, perhaps most
> importantly, her grandmother's cookbook.
>
> ___
>
> On the Net:
>
> The Internet Archive: http://www.archive.org
>
> The National Federation of the Blind: http://www.nfb.org
>
> Open Library: http://www.openlibrary.org
>
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