[access-uk] Re: The Kindle and accessible content
- From: "David Griffith" <d.griffith@xxxxxxxxxxxxxx>
- To: <access-uk@xxxxxxxxxxxxx>
- Date: Sun, 10 Oct 2010 17:09:31 +0100
I agree but I also think that if you come across a Kindle book that you
need or want and it is not speech enabled we should pressurise the
publishers.
This should be the case especially if there is no audio version either. The
development of the Kindle has I believed shifted what is reasonable in terms
of adjustment. I think it is now completely unreasonable not to provide
accessible versions of these books given the relative ease of adjustment.
It should be remembered that significant progress on the accessibility of
the Kindle Reader only materialised after the USA Blind organisation started
to take service providers using the Kindle to court as the use of the
device then discriminated against visually impaired service users.
The new equality act places specific obligation on providing print in
accessible formats for visually impaired people. Its in law now, and not
just in guidance so the time to increase pressure is now, I think.
Regards
David Griffith
-----Original Message-----
From: access-uk@xxxxxxxxxxxxx [mailto:access-uk@xxxxxxxxxxxxx] On Behalf Of
Neil Jarvis
Sent: Sunday, 10 October 2010 00:45
To: access-uk@xxxxxxxxxxxxx
Subject: [access-uk] Re: The Kindle and accessible content
Andy,
I wrote to this list recently saying that, like you, I'd done an
unscientific survey of which books had TTS enabled and which didn't. At the
time I looked at around 200 titles and found that about half had TTS
enabled. My subsequent exploration of the Kindle Store has resulted in
roughly the same proportion and not, as one person claimed on this list at
around the same time, that most titles were enabled.
However, even at an approximate 50% hit rate, that's still several hundred
thousand titles I now have access to which I didn't previously. I'll take
those odds any day.
As to which titles are enabled or disabled, its not really about how recent
the titles are so much as who has published them from what I can see. I've
certainly purchased several brand new titles which were fine.
The Authors' Guild approach is based on a complete mis-understanding of what
TTS is as compared to an audio production of the content. Whether that
mis-understanding is intentional or otherwise is, in mhy view, open to
debate, if you get my drift.
All the best,
Neil
----- Original Message -----
From: ANDY COLLINS <mailto:Andy@xxxxxxxxxxxxxxxxxxx>
To: access-uk@xxxxxxxxxxxxx
Sent: Sunday, October 10, 2010 9:50 AM
Subject: [access-uk] The Kindle and accessible content
Hi all -
Out of interest, I've just spent some time searching for 15 ebooks
in the Kindle store of which only 4 had tts enabled!
The titles I deliberately looked for were more recent releases.
Given the results of this piece of research, I have to say I'm very
disappointed, so even if the reader was more accessible, until more authors
allow text to speech for their work, I don't believe the Kindle offers value
for money. It looks like more older titles are available, but even there,
most still are not.
I can't understand the thinking of authors who refuse tts access to
their books, I wonder what they are afraid of? -
It is true to say that if one is not too fussy about what one reads,
just wanting to find something for free, or that has tts accessability, then
there may well be enough to go at, but for me, I don't wish to waste my time
reading just for readings sake, there's loads of great material out there,
and I for one, want greater access to it!
Andy
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