[bookshare-discuss] Re: Fw: We've found the solution, now let's create the problem

"Shelley L. Rhodes" <juddysbuddy@xxxxxxxxxxxx> · Fri, 11 May 2007 20:25:16 -0400

Me too.

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: "Grandma Cindy" <popularplace@xxxxxxxxx>
To: <bookshare-discuss@xxxxxxxxxxxxx>
Sent: Friday, May 11, 2007 7:18 PM
Subject: [bookshare-discuss] Re: Fw: We've found the solution, now let's 
create the problem

Very interesting. I hope bookshare can be the trusted
intermediary.

Cindy

--- "Shelley L. Rhodes" <juddysbuddy@xxxxxxxxxxxx>
wrote:

> 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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