[bksvol-discuss] Fw: We've found the solution, now let's create the problem
- From: "Shelley L. Rhodes" <juddysbuddy@xxxxxxxxxxxx>
- To: <bksvol-discuss@xxxxxxxxxxxxx>
- Date: Fri, 11 May 2007 18:02:26 -0400
Afascinating article worth looking at.
Shelley L. Rhodes M.A., VRT, CTVI
and Judson, guiding golden
juddysbuddy@xxxxxxxxxxxx
Guide Dogs For the Blind Inc.
Graduate Alumni Association Board
www.guidedogs.com
More than Any other time, When i hold a beloved book in my hand, my
limitations fall from me, my spirit is free.
- Helen Keller
----- Original Message -----
From: "BlindNews Mailing List" <blindnews@xxxxxxxxxxxxxxxxxxxx>
To: <BlindNews@xxxxxxxxxxxxxxxxxxxx>
Sent: Thursday, April 26, 2007 6:40 PM
Subject: We've found the solution, now let's create the problem
BBC Ouch! (UK)
Thursday, April 26, 2007
We've found the solution, now let's create the problem
By Ian Macrae
As the Man Booker Prize short list is announced for another year, visually
impaired radio presenter Ian Macrae laments the fact that he still can't get
hold of accessible books in the United Kingdom.
What does Sir Alf Ramsey have in common with the 9 surviving moonwalkers,
the Fab Four and the Atlantic slave trade? Well, they're all the subjects of
books which Ian Macrae has recently read despite the fact that they aren't
available to purchase in an accessible form for blind people, like myself,
or anyone else who has problems reading standard print text.
For anyone who has not been following, or has lost, the plot, here's a bit
of back-story.
Of all the books published each year, 95% are not and will never be made
accessible, that means readable by print disabled people. Admittedly among
these will be things no one would ever want to read like weighty tomes only
of interest to three people who're experts on municipal street lighting, or
else rubbish like the Da Vinci Code. But that still leaves a hell of a lot
of books.
So what if you're one of the three street-lighting anoraks, or you want to
read Dan Brown's two-dimensional flight of fancy, but also can't read
standard ink print? Well, let's use that immortal phrase, here's one I made
earlier.
In spring this year, I heard about the publication of Hugh Thomas's big
history of the slave trade, approximately 900 pages in paperback. I headed
for my nearest book store, waved my white stick, and bought the book.
Having got it, I sat down at my PC which is additionally equipped with a
flatbed scanner (about £130), an Optical Character Recognition software
package (not far shy of a grand), and lets not forget the book itself
(£8.99). I didn't scan the book in one hit, and didn't keep a log of exactly
how long it took me to scan it, but it was a considerable portion of my
remaining time on the planet and can certainly be measured in days.
A scanned version is never perfect. Having finished, I could have gone
through the electronic text, checking for and correcting the errors which
occurred during the process. But hey, life's too short and I wanted to read
the bloody book.
Now you probably think that, having gone to all that effort, if I have a
blind friend who's as interested in the history of the slave trade as I am,
I could just pass the scan on to them in the same way as we made tapes of
Billy Joel albums back in the 70s? Well, yes, I can, provided I also give
them the original book from which I made the scan otherwise I'm committing
an illegal act. That means that if I have more than one blind friend who's
interested in the book, the rest luck out.
But if an accessible copy of the book now exists thanks to the personal hard
work of a dedicated individual, and the internet exists to help share that
accessible copy, why should others go to extremes to scan and create yet
another?
Part of the answer, of course, is that people are already happily sharing
scanned books by email - and let the law go hang. But a combination of the
copyright law and publishers, who are unsurprisingly keen to protect their
interests, continues to present a huge obstacle.
In the states, the sharing of scanned texts is allowed via an organisation
called Bookshare, which not only uses scans done by blind people, but also
has volunteers providing scans around the clock.
When the much anticipated autobiography of Bill Clinton was published, for
example, it was available in an accessible electronic text format two days
after its print publication. Thanks to a bit of friendly transatlantic
piracy, it was also available to people over here.
Until publishers sort themselves out in the UK, if you know where to look,
there are already places on the web where it's possible to share texts, send
your scans or find books which might otherwise not be available to you.
One popular but illegal site has a stock which is already getting on for 50%
greater than the combined number of books held by the two big lending
libraries for visually impaired people in this country, the RNIB Talking
Book service and the National Library for the Blind.
All of this - not to mention the thriving and informal cottage industry that
exists on the blind grapevine - is good news for print disabled book lovers
despite remaining highly illegal.
The publishers just don't buy the Billy Joel cassette argument which says
that people giving each other taped copies of "the stranger" didn't
materially affect sales of the original album. They think we can't be
trusted not to get into the scanning business in such a big way as to
seriously erode their profit margins.
What's needed, they believe, is a "trusted intermediary". Would-be readers
are perhaps entitled to feel patronised now!
Enter the RNIB, who, if they don't actually agree with the publishers,
certainly offer an appearance of subscribing to their point of view. RNIB
are currently running a feasibility study aimed at finding out whether books
can be made accessible by said trusted intermediary, but produced in a
restricted format, not just as plain electronic texts like the American
system.
And guess who they think said trusted intermediary should be? Not that the
government's given them any money to undertake this, according to my source
at the institute. And not that anything is guaranteed to come out of it to
ensure that more people can read more of the books they want more readily
and quickly.
And this, dear reader, is the conundrum with which I leave you. A solution
not only exists to this problem but is being widely used legally in the
states and piratically elsewhere. Why bother looking for another? And why do
we need a trusted intermediary? The answer seems to be that it has more to
do with the publishers' requirement than with our genuine need.
Related links
www.bookshare.org - Bookshare aims to increase the accessibility of books
for people with visual disabilities.
www.manbookerprize.com - Man Booker prize official website
The BBC is not responsible for the content of external websites.
http://www.bbc.co.uk/ouch/features/macrae_books.shtml
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