[Nfbmo] Fw: [Missouri-l] Project puts 1M books online for blind, dyslexic

Sat May 8 18:26:23 UTC 2010

And will they be OCR'd?   I'm not sure these folks did their  homework.  We 
already have Project Gutenburg,
BookShare, BARD and RFB&D.  I'm happy for any new source but I'm  wondering 
if there is any coordination
here.
   And then there's the Google project.

In a message dated 5/8/2010 1:16:28 P.M. Central Daylight Time,  
gwunder at earthlink.net writes:

I wonder how  this differs from BookShare?

----- Original Message ----- 
From:  "Fred Olver" <goodfolks at charter.net>
To: "NFB of Missouri Mailing  List" <nfbmo at nfbnet.org>; 
<nfbmi-talk at nfbnet.org>; "Bill"  <xchiefbiele at aol.com>; "Kenneth M Schimel" 

<k.schimel at sbcglobal.net>
Sent: Friday, May 07, 2010 1:02  PM
Subject: [Nfbmo] Fw: [Missouri-l] Project puts 1M books online for  
blind,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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