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<H1 class=headline><A
href="http://www.signonsandiego.com/news/2010/may/05/project-puts-1m-books-online-for-blind-dyslexic/">Project
puts 1M books online for blind, dyslexic</A></H1>
<P class=byline>By BROOKE DONALD, Associated Press Writer</P>
<P class=date>Wednesday, May 5, 2010 at 9:02 p.m</P>
<P><SPAN class=dateline>SAN FRANCISCO</SPAN> — 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. </P>
<P>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. </P>
<P>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. </P>
<P> </P>
<P>"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. </P>
<P>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. </P>
<P>The collections are also limited to the most popular titles published within
the past several years. </P>
<P>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 <A class=DL-topic-highlighted
href="http://topics.signonsandiego.com/topic/Library_of_Congress">Library of
Congress</A><SPAN></SPAN>. </P>
<P>"Publishers mostly concentrate on their newest, profitable books. We are
working to get all books online," Kahle said. </P>
<P>Marc Maurer, president of the National Federation of the Blind, says getting
access to books has been a big challenge for blind people. </P>
<P>"Now, for the first time, we're going to have access to an enormous
quantity," he said. </P>
<P>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. </P>
<P>"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." </P>
<P>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. </P>
<P>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. </P>
<P>"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 <A class=DL-topic-highlighted
href="http://topics.signonsandiego.com/topic/Intel">Intel</A><SPAN> </SPAN>Corp.
</P>
<P>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. </P>
<P>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. </P>
<P>"For individuals living with print-related disabilities, this is
groundbreaking," she said. "This project will enable people like me to choose
what we read." </P>
<P>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</P>
<P><SPAN class=850444321-06052010><FONT color=#000080 size=5 face=Tahoma>Photo
captions from article: </FONT></SPAN></P>
<P><SPAN class=850444321-06052010>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 <A class=DL-topic-highlighted
href="http://topics.signonsandiego.com/topic/San_Francisco">San
Francisco</A><SPAN></SPAN>. 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)</SPAN></P>
<P><SPAN class=850444321-06052010>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)</SPAN></P>
<P><SPAN class=850444321-06052010>In this May 3, 2010 photo, Internet Archive
digital librarian <A class=DL-topic-highlighted
href="http://topics.signonsandiego.com/topic/Brewster_Kahle">Brewster
Kahle</A><SPAN> </SPAN>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)</SPAN></P></DIV></BODY></HTML>