[Nfbv-announce] Thank You To All!

[Fredric Schroeder]

Friends,

I wanted to take a minute and thank all of you who participated in
yesterday's demonstration in New York.  I especially want to thank Larry
Povinelli for organizing transportation.  We had over forty people on the
Virginia bus to New York.  We had about three hundred people, most of them
Federationists, participate in the protest.  We were able to get very good
news coverage of the event and I am confident that we are well underway to
resolving the accessibility issue with the new e-books issued through
Amazon.  

All we are asking is that the Kindle e-book reader be able to read aloud the
information that is displayed on the screen for sighted readers.  This makes
good sense for blind people and it should make good sense to the book
publishers.  We would still have to buy the e-books like anyone else.  All
we want is for the Kindle book reader to include speech for all e-books.
The Kindle 2 reader already has the speech feature in it, so we are not
asking for anything that will increase the cost.  The issue is that, under
pressure from the Authors Guild, Amazon has agreed to let the publisher or
author turn off the audible feature.  How many books will have the text to
speech disabled is anyone's guess.  What we do know is that e-books will
give us access to more books than we have ever had, providing we are able to
use them.

There will be more to do on this issue.  I appreciate the long trip many of
our members and friends made yesterday, particularly those from the Virginia
Beach, Tidewater and Hampton Roads areas.  I also want to alert those of you
who were unable to participate that you will very likely be called on as we
continue to fight for full access to e-books and the right to read.

With sincere gratitude,

Fred Schroeder, President
National Federation of the Blind of Virginia