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  • Audiobooks, E-readers and Accessibility

    By Joshua Kim November 12, 2009 10:43 pm

    Three cheers for the educators at Syracuse and UW Madison for refusing to purchase new Kindle's until the speech-to-text feature meets accessibility standards. It is beyond stupid that Amazon neglected to provide spoken menu options, therefore making it impossible for sight impaired readers to access the speech to text feature.

    All colleges and universities, and libraries (and all of us consumers) should follow the lead of these institutions and refuse to purchase e-readers until they are fully accessible. This is, as they say in our business, a "teachable moment."

    Amazon has a wonderful opportunity to make lemonade from lemons, and leverage the attention it getting about accessibility to make a positive and significant contribution towards opening up reading for all readers. Amazon should bring out a college library Audible initiative. Accessible speech-to-text for e-readers is essential, but the experience of a machine generated voice remains a poor substitute to the spoken word. Providing higher ed libraries the means to lend Audible audiobooks would immediately make large number of books accessible, as well provide another medium that all learners (students, faculty, staff) could consume books.

    The fact that the e-reader boycott is getting so much press demonstrates the power of our higher ed institutions to advocate for companies to change their products and policies. How can we get similar momentum built up around providing audiobooks for loan?

    When it comes to advocating for audiobooks to be included in academic library collections I'll admit to some strong vested interests. I'm a huge audiobook fanatic. Too much of my money goes to Amazon to pay for my Audible platinum membership. Almost all my nonfiction reading is done via audiobook. The genius of audiobooks is that they allow reading while doing other things. Reading while driving, reading while doing the dishes, reading while walking across campus. Are you an audiobook fanatic as well? My Audible reading list can be found here - I'd love to see what you are reading (and why can't Amazon/Audible provide social space for passionate readers to meet up, exchange reviews and recommendations?).

    So my plea for college/university libraries and Amazon to to get together to offer an audiobook program is entirely self-interested. But it would also make good learning and business sense. How many of our students are shut out from reading for accessibility or learning style reasons? How many students would benefit from being able to get course reading done while multitasking (riding on a campus shuttle, running on a treadmill, walking between classes)?

    Can some enlighten me as to why Audible does not have a college library program? (Or is there a program that I can't track down?).

    I've long thought that the academic librarian worry about Google's book digitization effort is misplaced, and the real worry should be about the dominance that Amazon has in the digital book world. It is great that Amazon is finally getting some competition in the e-reader business, but I worry that their control of the audiobook market through Amazon will stifle the kind of innovations and partnership with libraries that I'm suggesting.

    Both Amazon and academic libraries need to develop the next generation of book readers (and I mean people who read, not e-readers). I'd bet that a large number of college students would be more likely to read if an audio option was offered. If Amazon does not provide this generation with the opportunity to fall in love with books through audio then they may loose the next generation of readers and book buyers. Providing audiobooks for check-out is an example where, by working together, Amazon and academic libraries can both increase overall reading and make their collections accessible to all learners.

    How can we get audiobooks into our academic library collections? How can we insure that these audiobooks work on the devices that students already have (ie iPods), and are not restricted in file format or DRM to players that only a few students possess? How can we support and encourage the trend for academic libraries to invest in digital and audiobooks in the same way they invest in paper copies? And how can we push to get Amazon on board to create an academic library program?

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Comments on Audiobooks, E-readers and Accessibility

  • Possibly a Few Answers
  • Posted by gary price on November 13, 2009 at 5:15am EST

  • Josh, I'm the editor of ResourceShelf.com and also a librarian.

    Here are a couple of comments and resources that I shared in this post: http://bit.ly/1xVZ1W. It also contains urls to some of the companies I mention.

    1) Re: "fanatic" ebook usage and sending a check every month to Audible/Amazon.

    Have you downloaded and listened to any of the thousands of eBooks The Howe Library in Hanover provides for free. Download them to your iPod or other device from, office, and Internet cafe in Paris, anywhere you can get a net connection, 24x7x365 access. It's all free with your library card. Here's the Howe Collection home page and a direct link to the statewide program that provides the audiobooks from OverDrive.

    http://www.thehowe.org/interior.php/pid/3/sid/7
    http://nh.lib.overdrive.com/

    2) From what I have seen on their web site OverDrive (a major player in audiobooks for libraries) does not have an academic library program. I'm calling to find out for sure. They just introduced a program for K-12 schools last week (link in my post).
    3) Another player in audiobooks and eBooks is NetLibrary. The company is part of OCLC . They have several thousand audio titles and from what I can tell they do work with academic libraries. For example, The McDonald Library at Xavier Unversity has a page explaining how to download audio from NetLibrary (http://www.xavier.edu/library/help/netLibrary.cfm), Emory has a small collection of fiction (http://guides.main.library.emory.edu/audiobooks) that I think they collect themselves and UNC-Greensboro has about 1100 audio titles via NetLibrary.
    Finally, regarding the eReader. Good points. I wanted to let you know (if you are unaware) that later this month the legendary Ray Kurzweil is releasing in collaboration with the National Federation for Blind an eReader that will also offer audio. Story and links here: http://bit.ly/4wwgAz
    Cheers,
    Gary Price, MLIS
    gary@resourceshelf.com

  • Posted by Jonathan Dresner on November 13, 2009 at 9:45am EST

  • As I commented over here, I'm amazed at the ignorance related to accessiblity in higher education.

    While audio books are, indeed, great fun and the proliferation of them has made access to commercial fiction, etc., much easier for the visually impaired (and those people who wanted to buy them books!), it's not a replacement for full-text access in textbooks.

    It's not even close, really: many natural science, mathematics, business and economics textbooks contain the kind of technical language and mathematical symbology which is nearly impossible to read (and even harder to listen to effectively). Even my history textbooks feature sidebars, offset pages, picture captions, maps, and reference pages which audiobooks handle very, very poorly.

    There's a solution, though: DAISY. The DAISY standard for linked speech and text makes it possible for the reader to move between the printed text (accessible as machine braille) and the computer-spoken text (It's technically possible to index an audiobook in DAISY format, but a great deal of work, whereas using the text-to-speech function it can be handled more or less automatically).

    Concerns about copyright infrigement are handled by restricting access to properly credentialed users of the Library for the Blind, and by making the text available in machine-translated braille rather than clear text. The technology and standards exist: why doesn't anyone in higher ed seem to know about it unless they're married to a blind person?

  • thanks Jonathan - DAISY
  • Posted by Joshua Kim at Dartmouth College on November 13, 2009 at 11:00am EST

  • Jonathan...thanks for your post. I am indeed ignorant about DAISY - but from your post I am going to go ahead and educate myself.

    This is one of the good things I see about social media - we can expose what we don't know (as well as what we know) and build relationships that encourage us to learn and explore.

    As for audiobooks, I did not mean to suggest they can meet all accessibility needs. But surely some part of the curriculum or the collections would overlap with what is available on audio...

    Thanks again for your post. Josh

  • thanks Gary - resources and responses
  • Posted by Joshua Kim at Dartmouth College on November 13, 2009 at 1:30pm EST

  • Gary...tons of great info in your post - thank you.

    Some quick responses - although I still need to thoroughly investigate your links:

    1) Our local Howe library: My experience is that the audiobook coverage is limited (as compared to Audible), not all books are available for iPods, and often the books I want are out. In short, the experience is know where near as good as Audible. Conversely, getting a paper book from my library is just as fast as ordering a paper book from Amazon (thanks to our big collection and InterLibrary loan). The truth is that someone like me who can pay for audiobooks has a much better experience....and we restricting this good experience by income (something libraries - particularly academic libraries - are committed to overcoming).

    2. I had not known about Kurzweil's e-reader. Actually a big fan of KurzweiI, as I buy his ideas about how big changes in technology and biotechnology will lead to shifts in our lives as large as the introduction of antibiotics in the past century. Will look out for this new development.

    Thanks again....looking forward to checking out resourceshelf.com

    Josh

  • Accessibility of Audio Textbook Content
  • Posted by Pam Johnson , Director, Library Services at Recording for the Blind & Dyslexic on November 18, 2009 at 7:00pm EST

  • Josh,

     

    I’ve read this discussion with interest, and wanted to let your readers know that a major resource of accessible audio textbook content is readily available for people with print disabilities through Recording for the Blind & Dyslexic (RFB&D).

     

    RFB&D offers the nation’s largest educational library of audio books, currently over 55,000 titles and growing each week. Thousands of volunteers read and record these books in studios across the country; our content is distributed in a variety of accessible formats, and over 250,000 individuals are using our services.

     

    Our library spans the educational range from K-12 through college, with a focus on textbooks and literature that support educational curricula. At the college level, RFB&D librarians focus on selecting textbooks shown as the top ranked titles from Bowker’s PubTrak Higher Education, a database with the top titles sold in college stores, spanning over 85 subject areas.

     

    As Jonathan mentions, reading textbook content, especially STM content, is challenging. RFB&D has developed standard reading conventions and records the audio version of a textbook to maximize accessibility of content to the end user. So, sidebars and illustrations, all of which are described, are read near the text to which they refer. The advantage of utilizing volunteers to read our books is that, as subject specialists, they are knowledgeable in content terminology. Also, charts, graphs and illustrations are described so provide a fully accessible version of the book.

     

    RFB&D is a member of the DAISY Consortium and our books are provided in DAISY format, which provides a navigable, audio version. Navigating educational content is critical for students wishing to skip to specific sections of the book in reading and reviewing content. As a result, we offer audio books on DAISY CDs and in downloadable versions accessible on Windows Media format MP3 players and a variety of other devices that have been well received by students and institutions.

     

    For more information on RFB&D memberships (individual and school) and services for individuals with print disabilities, including visual impairment, dyslexia, learning disabilities and other physical disabilities, visit www.rfbd.org

     

    Pam Johnson

    Director, Library Services

    Recording for the Blind & Dyslexic

    pjohnson@rfbd.org

  • DAISY and Chafee Specialized Format
  • Posted by john miller , Director at 121authent.org on December 8, 2009 at 5:00pm EST

  • There's a solution, though: DAISY. The question with DAISY now, however, is does DAISY conform to the definition of specialized format in the Section 121 Chafee Amendment at D4 in that it is not "Braille, audio, or digital text which is exclusively for use by blind or other persons with disabilities". By the definition provided by the ANSI NISO Standards themselves DAISY is not an 'Exclusive" format -- Dr. Kersher of DAISY Consortium himself in US Copyright Office May 2009 written testimony as regards the definition of 'Specialized format' referred to DAISY as an "Effective" as opposed to an "Exclusive" format.

    Along with Dr. Kersher of DAISY, Dr. Mauer of the NFB were both unable to make a statement in the May 2009 written testimony that DAISY does indeed meet the Section 121 D4 definition. The General Counsel's Office of the US Department of Education recently declined a request in writing to issue a written statement that DAISY does so conform to the 'Specialized Format ' definition in Chafee even though the entire NIMAC/NIMAS program has at its foundation the Chafee Amendment Copyright Exemption.

    If DAISY does not so conform to the Specialized Format definition then any reproduction and distribution claiming exemption under the Chafee Amendment may be an infringement of Copyright... and those whose works might be so infringed may be preparing to challenge that blanket claim of exemption as there is no legislative or judicial language that DAISY does so conform.

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