[nfbmi-talk] Fw: [Missouri-l] Project puts 1M books online forblind, dyslexic

[Ann Petrous]

Yay!!!! *does a happy dance* now I can further my dragonlance obsession!!
Lol There are sooo many books I would like to read, but I can't because they
are too expensive or it takes a million years for the sources I use to put
them up. I have no patience, especially if it's a series I'm really into,
and want to read right away. I'm a huge fan of fantasy, and I can't wait for
this to come out. What is the website, and when will this be launched?? I
don't think bookshare, and the NLS can put books up fast enough for me.
There are over 150 dragonlance related books, and I plan on reading every
one of them; including fantasy titles I've never heard of, and will love to
discover. Woot woot lol I want to be able to read books on the day of its
release. If sighted people have this privillage, we should too.

-----Original Message-----
From: nfbmi-talk-bounces at nfbnet.org [mailto:nfbmi-talk-bounces at nfbnet.org]
On Behalf Of Fred Olver
Sent: Friday, May 07, 2010 2:02 PM
To: NFB of Missouri Mailing List; nfbmi-talk at nfbnet.org; Bill; Kenneth M
Schimel
Subject: [nfbmi-talk] Fw: [Missouri-l] Project puts 1M books online
forblind, dyslexic


----- Original Message ----- 
From: Chip Hailey
To: missouri-l at moblind.org
Sent: Friday, May 07, 2010 4:06 AM
Subject: [Missouri-l] Project puts 1M books online for blind, dyslexic


Project puts 1M books online for blind, dyslexic
Email this Story
May 6, 11:14 AM (ET)
By BROOKE DONALD
SAN FRANCISCO (AP) - 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.



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