[bksvol-discuss] Something of interest
- From: "Chela Robles" <cdrobles693@xxxxxxxxx>
- To: <bksvol-discuss@xxxxxxxxxxxxx>
- Date: Thu, 18 Feb 2010 10:30:35 -0800
The Internet Archive: An Untapped Resource for the Blind
by Daniel B. Frye
Today blind people can and do access record amounts of written information
through the emergence of scanning and digitization and assistive technology. We
read newspaper articles, books, and other written materials using NFB NEWSLINE
for the Blind®, the National Library Service for the Blind and Physically
Handicapped (NLS), Recording for the Blind and Dyslexic, Bookshare, and
Audible.com among other resources. Even when something is not available in an
accessible format, current technology allows relatively easy access to printed
texts. Because of the rapid evolution of access to information, some may even
feel overwhelmed by the array of accessible reading options now available.
The Braille Monitor has recently learned of another Internet-based resource
that makes more than 1.8 million digital books and other material freely
available to everyone with access to the Internet. Founded by Brewster Kahle in
1996, the Internet Archive, a nonprofit digital library based in San Francisco,
California, promotes universal access to knowledge. Although the Internet
Archive management team did not have the needs of blind people in mind
originally, they have been receptive to suggestions for making their vast
content accessible to blind computer users. Toward this end the Internet
Archive is exploring a partnership with the National Federation of the Blind to
digitize and preserve our audio and video files through a grant application to
the Institute for Museum and Library Services, a federal agency. The Archive is
also negotiating with the NLS to use its disability-verification system so they
can provide accessible formats of copyrighted materials to eligible blind and
print-disabled people in the United States. Moreover the Internet Archive has
already been producing its downloadable collection of books (most older and in
the public domain) in the internationally recognized DAISY format.
According to Linda Frueh, the Internet Archive's regional director for
Washington, D.C., Kahle and his wife established a foundation and launched the
Internet Archive with the goal of recording the entire Internet. Frueh said
that Kahle reasoned, "Here's an enormous, new technology changing from day to
day, and nobody's recording it." Using Web-harvesting technology, a specially
designed computer program that copies and saves Web pages, the organization has
been preserving the evolving Internet. Kahle began by conducting a bimonthly
Internet crawl. "We have one hundred and fifty billion Web pages archived since
1996," Frueh said. She explained further, "The way people access old Web pages
is through the Wayback Machine, a search engine for all of the old Web pages
archived at <www.archive.org>. On the results page you'll get a timeline of the
various versions of the Web pages for which you are looking." Historians
interested in the NFB, for instance, could use the Wayback Machine to review
the evolution of our Internet site for the last fourteen years.
Having launched the Internet archiving project, the organization expanded its
goals to digitize other media. Its online library now posts digital books,
music, audio recordings, films, software collections, and more from its
Website. Everything is made available free of charge. "We never have charged
and never will charge for any of our content. Our goal is to make as much
information as possible available to everyone who wants it; we're not invested
in whether we provide information under our own name or as the
behind-the-scenes resource for other Internet services," Frueh said.
Though much of this additional content may be of interest to blind people, the
greatest benefit to the blind will be the large digital book collection it has
already assembled. The most effective way to access these digital books from
the Internet Archive is to visit its dedicated digital book Website
<www.openlibrary.org>. Though visitors can reach the collection through the
main Internet Archive Website, Frueh advises that both blind and sighted users
who are interested only in downloading books will find it easier to go directly
to the dedicated digital Website. The NFB is working with the Internet Archive
to help evaluate and maximize the accessibility of its several Websites. These
are clearly growing in popularity with a reported three million people a day
visiting <www.archive.org> and two hundred and fifty thousand visiting
<www.openlibrary.org>.
The Internet Archive's book collection reflects its history of working with
academic institutions, libraries, and government agencies. It has 3,324 books
in its children's collection at <http://www.archive.org/detail/iacl>. For
examples of scientific literature scanned by the Archive from the Biodiversity
Heritage Library, visit <http://www.biodiversitylibrary.org>. The Archive has
scanned over thirty-three thousand items in this collection. Frueh says that
the Internet Archive also has the largest Arabic collection outside of the
Middle East and the Library of Congress. The Internet Archive digital library
dwarfs the NLS digital collection, but Frueh reports that her organization
would be delighted to explore expanding its partnership with NLS, allowing the
national library to make all of these titles available through its frontline
resources.
Readers should know that the Internet Archive, a member of the Open Book
Alliance, opposes the currently proposed Google Books settlement. The Internet
Archive and its supporters believe that the settlement as currently drafted
creates an uneven playing field in out-of-print book publishing, an obscure
area of debate among legal and academic scholars about one aspect of copyright
law. Its objections, however, have nothing to do with the accessibility
provisions and promise of rapid access to many digital books that the Google
Book agreement would generate.
Blind readers now have another significant resource at our disposal that will
enrich our lives. We can visit the Internet Archive and its related Websites
for study, work, and recreation. The NFB looks forward to an ongoing and
fruitful partnership with the Internet Archive.
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"To me, music that breaks your heart is the music that stays with you forever.
It's one thing to be melancholy and one thing to be sophisticated, but when you
get the two of them together in a way people can relate to, then I think you're
on to something. You want the sophistication to lie in the purity of the sound,
the beauty of the arrangements, and the quality of the performances."-Trumpeter
Chris Botti----
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Chela Robles
E-Mail: cdrobles693@xxxxxxxxx
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