[Nfb-science] procuring physics textbooks

[Lloyd Rasmussen]

I would start with the question of the electronic braille files.  They are 
in a specialized format, as defined under the Chafee Amendment.  And 
although literary braille is fairly easy to back-translate, the math 
inclusions would not be.  It doesn't make sense to have someone do double 
work to provide the textbook(s).



Lloyd Rasmussen, Kensington, MD
http://lras.home.sprynet.com
-----Original Message----- 
From: Daniel via Nfb-science
Sent: Saturday, June 28, 2014 4:43 PM
To: nfb-science at nfbnet.org
Subject: [Nfb-science] procuring physics textbooks

Dear list members,

  I think I may have posted something here within the last year
or so about having materials procured for a physics course.  In
case some of you don't remember, I am Daniel Gillen, a rising
college junior majoring in physics at Haverford College.  For the
upper-level course on classical mechanics I will take this fall,
there are two different textbooks which the course will be using.
In the past, the Office of Disabilities Services tried to
organize all of my materials in-house; this was not shown to be
workable when last year's fall physics textbook, being in Word
documents with math entered through MathType, returned either
error messages or false positives throughout the book.  Since
then, they were able to farm out the previous semester's text in
Braille hard copy, which made it more straightforward for showing
matrices, as well as the possibility of diagrams integrated into
the book.  This only helped some, but since finding equations
required constant thumbing through pages of various volumes.
They are now deciding to have this coming semester's books both
in hard copy, as well as in an electronic text-based format to
make it possible for me to search more efficiently while
studying.
  As of now, I am very concerned about the format of the
electronic textbook.  Unfortunately, it sounded like the same
company that was transcribing the book in hard copy could not
also distribute the electronic Braille files of the book due to
copyright laws.  Also, it appears that a different company will
try to procure Word documents with the math notation in MathML, a
form which only a computer can make sense of.  The main issue
here is that I will need to have two Braille-readable formats for
each book (one hard-copy and one electronic Braille which I can
read on my BrailleNote Apex's Braille display).  In doing so, any
conversion of the electronic files to Braille-ready format should
result in a finished product with as few errors or ambiguities as
possible.  Yet I've been told by the head of the Office of
Disability Services after much conversation that I could just as
well look up the ambiguous/erroneously translated expression(s)
in the hard copy when I'm studying.
  I apologize for the ramblings-on about this, but I would like
to know what some of the viable options are/have been.  This is
for those of you like me who are proficient Braille readers and
use a Braille note-taker in STEM subjects.  I wonder if there are
others in this situation who use electronic Braille versions of
STEM textbooks rather than audio options.  After all, despite my
complete lack of vision, I am, as some might argue, a visual
learner.  I know I may be writing this after all of the book
orders have been made, but please let me know what works/has
worked best for you in terms of getting through these sorts of
courses.  This will hopefully give me something to look back at
for future courses as I progress through the latter half of
college.

Thank you,
Daniel