Millions of books get digitized for the disabled
14 July 2010 - USA Today
For those who are blind, dyslexic or have diseases like multiple
sclerosis and have difficulty turning book pages, reading the latest
best seller just got easier.
Brewster Kahle, a digital librarian and founder of a virtual library
called the Internet Archive, has launched a worldwide campaign to
double the number of books available for print-disabled people.
The Internet Archive began scanning books in 2004 and now has more
than 1 million available in DAISY format, or Digital Accessible
Information System, a means of creating "talking" books that can be
downloaded to a handheld device. Unlike books on tape, the digital
format makes it easier for print-disabled people to navigate books
because they can speed up, slow down and skip around from chapter to
chapter.
About 7 million books are downloaded by Internet Archive users around
the world each month, Kahle says. With 20 scanning centers in the USA
and eight in countries around the world, the archive scans more than
1,000 books a day from more than 150 libraries, including the Library
of Congress- the largest library in the world that also offers online
digitalized collections of books, articles and newspapers.
The US government, foundations and libraries provide funding for the
Internet Archive. To help with the campaign, Kahle received a grant
from the city of San Francisco to employ 100 "digital technicians"
who work to scan books that people and organizations are donating for
the project. The technicians were all formerly unemployed or
underemployed single parents.
Free access to books
The digital library contains everything from classical literature
like Jane Austen's Pride and Prejudice to books on business and money
like Suze Orman's 9 Steps to Financial Freedom to fiction best
sellers like Twilight by Stephenie Meyer.
"If someone is curious and wants to read books, we try our best to
give them access to the books they are interested in," Kahle says.
He adds that the archive is different from Google's digital
book-scanning because the Internet Archive is a "library" and Google
is like a "bookstore," because Google offers only limited access to
books under copyright at no cost.
"The Internet Archive encourages people to download all the
public-domain books they want - free - and we are not looking to
charge libraries for access to the books we have digitized from their
collections," Kahle says.
Christopher Danielsen, spokesman for the National Federation of the
Blind, says the Internet Archive will benefit the 1.3 million blind
people in the USA because it will increase the variety of books
available to the population. Danielsen says only about 5% of
published books are transferred to a format the blind can use.
Making life easier
Ben Foss, president of Headstrong, an advocacy group for people with
dyslexia, and director of access technology at Intel, says the DAISY
archive is useful for people like himself who find it challenging to read.
Foss, who has dyslexia - a language-based learning disability that
makes reading difficult - used to fax his college term papers to his
mother, who would help him proofread by reading the papers back to
him over the phone.
Today, Foss uses an Intel Reader, a talking computer that is
compatible with DAISY books.
"The archive offers pre-formatted material that I can load on a
device and have it read aloud, making not only my life easier but
also the lives of my friends and family who I would otherwise rely on
for help," Foss says.
According to the National Center for Learning Disabilities, dyslexia
is the most prevalent learning disability in the USA, and 15% to 20%
of the population has a language-based learning disability in which
people have problems with reading, spelling and writing.
Only 25% to 35% of students with learning disabilities are provided
with technology to support their learning, the center says.
Kahle says the Internet Archive is an invaluable resource for
dyslexic, blind and print-disabled students who can use the digital
book collection to download reference materials and write research
papers. He encourages teachers to send in books that will be on
reading lists for the next school year. If received now, the books
can be scanned during the summer and available online when school
resumes in the fall.
The Internet Archive will cover the expenses of scanning the first
10,000 books it receives but is asking people to donate to help
continue scanning.
To donate a book to the Internet Archive, visit
www.openlibrary.org.
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