[Blindmath] What is the accessibility level of Safari online books?

[Michael Whapples]

Hello,
For my course I needed to use a book which was available through safari 
books. There was no maths content as it was about software requirements, but 
the general experience was good. Well the experience was good once I changed 
the view to HTML, the one I initially had was flash based and so was 
inaccessible on the Mac an Linux.

Regarding the cost, for me there was no additional cost as the Open 
University have a subscription which allows students to access safari books.

I do keep intending to try out some of the various resources I have access 
to through the Open university to see how accessible the maths content is 
but I never quite seem to get that far down the list of things to do.

Michael Whapples
----- Original Message ----- 
From: "Richard Baldwin" <baldwin at dickbaldwin.com>
To: "BlindMath Mailing List" <blindmath at nfbnet.org>
Sent: Wednesday, July 27, 2011 12:24 AM
Subject: [Blindmath] What is the accessibility level of Safari online books?


> I'm wondering about the accessibility level of online books at Safari.
>
> There is some information about their accessibility, including screen 
> reader
> compatibility, at http://my.safaribooksonline.com/508compliance
>
> I am currently working with an online version of an XML book there (45-day
> free trial with purchase of book) and I have been happy with the
> presentation as a sighted user.
>
> My XML book is available in either a PDF-like format or an HTML-like 
> format.
> I prefer the HTML presentation format.
>
> If I understand it correctly, a subscription that includes any ten books 
> in
> their library costs about $23 per month and you can check one book in and
> another book out after 30 days. That would be expensive if the student 
> only
> needed access to one book, but would be reasonable if they need access to
> five books for a typical semester. In fact, that would probably cost less
> than purchasing five technical books that can only be used for one 
> semester.
>
> Has anyone looked into this?
>
> I'm particularly curious as to how the equations in a physics or math book
> might appear to a blind reader on the Safari site. Other that a few images
> in the XML book, everything else seems to be very accessible, but that is
> because XML is plain text, and plain text works well with screen readers 
> and
> Braille displays.
>
> I think they have a 10-day free trial if anyone would like to give it a 
> try.
>
> Dick Baldwin
>
> -- 
> Richard G. Baldwin (Dick Baldwin)
> Home of Baldwin's on-line Java Tutorials
> http://www.DickBaldwin.com
>
> Professor of Computer Information Technology
> Austin Community College
> (512) 223-4758
> mailto:Baldwin at DickBaldwin.com
> http://www.austincc.edu/baldwin/
>
> 


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