I'm with you, Tracy. As a blind person, I've been super-excited to find quite
a few knitting books in the Bookshare collection, only to find that the
patterns are a complete waste of time because of the charts, which are usually
missing completely. I have also had the experience with iBooks and Kindle that
they, too, opt out of the charts. Unfortunately, I've read recently in my
newsletters from Lion Brand that they are planning to go to charts more and
more, which they claim makes patterns easier for their crafters to understand.
I did bring this up on this list about three years ago and was told that the
purpose of Bookshare is not to make everything accessible to blind people. So
I backed off. But as a knitter since my childhood, and a rather accomplished
one, I hate seeing great knitting books listed, pull them off in BRF format,
and then discover that they're a total waste. I have had the question since
that time, "If the collection is not accessible to all, how can it be called
accessible?"
Sandi
-----Original Message-----
From: bksvol-discuss-bounce@xxxxxxxxxxxxx
[mailto:bksvol-discuss-bounce@xxxxxxxxxxxxx] On Behalf Of Tracy Carcione
Sent: Thursday, April 9, 2015 1:51 PM
To: bksvol-discuss@xxxxxxxxxxxxx
Subject: [bksvol-discuss] Re: knitting charts accessibility
I welcome anything you can think of to make those darn charts accessible. I am
blind, and the only way I know to access charts is to translate them into
written instructions, or to translate each code into a non-picture code.
I saw a chart in braille in an NLS book where the knits were - and the purls
were p, for example, and that was OK.
Either way, it couldn't just be scanned; some, or a lot, of manual intervention
is required.
It drives me batty. I find a knitting pattern that sounds interesting, and
then it's only charted and I can't do it without finding a very patient person
to translate it for me.
There are a fair number of knitting books already on Bookshare that are almost
all charts, and not usable.
Tracy
-----Original Message-----
From: bksvol-discuss-bounce@xxxxxxxxxxxxx
[mailto:bksvol-discuss-bounce@xxxxxxxxxxxxx] On Behalf Of Wanda Cochran
Sent: Thursday, April 09, 2015 1:16 PM
To: bksvol-discuss@xxxxxxxxxxxxx
Subject: [bksvol-discuss] kniting charts accessibility
Hello, I would like to scan some knitting books to include in the bookshare
library, but I have a question about the accessibilty of the knitting charts
included in many books. I just read with the web reader using safari “French
Girl Knits,” but when I clicked on the link for the charts for a pattern, a
page popped up that was not spoken by Voice Over. I saved the file and then
tried opening it up with Adobe and Digital Editions but both programs said the
files were not able to be opened because they may be corrupted. A few years
ago the charts were linked to excel files which seem to make more sense for
tracking a chart rather than a pdf file, so I wanted to bring this up because I
would like to make the books accessible for all users of bookshare including
the visually impaired. Is there a way that we can make these charts accessible
via spread sheet or written out in word form? Even with partial vision, it can
be very tedious to try and follow a knitting chart an
d so is there a volunteer who would be willing to translate the charts into
an accessible format? Is it even allowed by the publisher to translate the
chart into written instructions? If the transcription is allowed then if there
is a need for volunteers for this task, I could start a ravelry group seeking
volunteers. I find most craft people very genrous ssouls, so we should be able
to find folks to help out. Please let me know what I can do to help. Thank
you.
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