[Nfbk] 1 Million Books!

Kevin Pearl kvnprl at insightbb.com
Thu May 6 21:47:03 UTC 2010


Project puts 1M books online for blind, dyslexic
By BROOKE DONALD, Associated Press Writer

Wednesday, May 5, 2010 at 9:02 p.m

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

Photo captions from article:

In this May 3, 2010 photo, Jesse Lorenz, who is blind, holds up a Human Ware
VictorReader, which can be used to play books, at the Internet Archive
office in San Francisco. Using money from foundations, libraries,
corporations and the government, the organization has hired hundreds of
people to scan thousands of books into their database, an effort which will
more than double the number of titles available to people who are blind,
dyslexic or have another disability that makes them unable to read a
hardcopy book. (AP Photo/Jeff Chiu)

In this May 3, 2010 photo, Jesse Lorenz, right, who is blind, sits with her
dog Nacho as she works with engineer Mike McCabe, left, and director of Open
Library George Oates at the Internet Archive office in San Francisco. Using
money from foundations, libraries, corporations and the government, the
organization has hired hundreds of people to scan thousands of books into
their database, an effort which will more than double the number of titles
available to people who are blind, dyslexic or have another disability that
makes them unable to read a hardcopy book. (AP Photo/Jeff Chiu)

In this May 3, 2010 photo, Internet Archive digital librarian Brewster Kahle
poses for a photograph in front of a book scanner at the Internet Archive
office in San Francisco, Monday, May 3, 2010. Using money from foundations,
libraries, corporations and the government, the organization has hired
hundreds of people to scan thousands of books into their database, an effort
which will more than double the number of titles available to people who are
blind, dyslexic or have another disability that makes them unable to read a
hardcopy book. (AP Photo/Jeff Chiu)
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