by Penny Reeder
Too Many Books, Too Little Access
Several times each month, I read or hear a book review that is so enticing, I know if I could read print, I would head right for Amazon.com, or Borders, or Barnes and Noble, and plunk down the dollars that would put the book in my hands. There are novels, and books about current events, recent and ancient history, biographies, cookbooks, and science fiction; they're all calling me, and I want nothing more than to pick each of them up and start reading. There's only one problem: I can't read print, and in most cases, a trip to the bookstore in search of an audio version of the latest best sellers would yield only an apologetic shrug from the bookseller behind the counter.
So, I attempt to file away a list of all those books whose reviews have enticed me. I save the list and add to it and save it and add to it and save it. Sometimes after 18 months or so, the National Library Service for the Blind and Physically Handicapped (NLS) will list one of those books on my personal "Must Read" list among the newly available titles on audiocassette, but by then, a hundred or so other books have joined my "Must Read" list. Often the buzz about a book has died down by the time the NLS makes it available, so even if I notice the title in "Talking Book Topics," chances are that, when I finish reading the novel or the history or the biography, there won't be too many people who will still have much interest in discussing it.
Don't misunderstand. I think that the service the NLS offers is a very worthwhile and liberating one, and I am on a first-name basis with the librarians who take my calls and attempt to fill my orders at my local Special Needs Library. But I long for the immediacy of a bookstore, and the gratification of reading a book at the same time lots of other people are reading it.
I have been a patron of Recording for the Blind & Dyslexic since their only audience for recorded books was people with visual impairments. Remember those "disposable" disks? We used to have to weigh the "tone arm" on our Talking Book Machines down with a couple of quarters to make them play, but they were lifesavers for college students, and the quality and diversity of RFB's recordings improved steadily throughout the years. RFB&D still provides a wonderful service, of which I take advantage as often as they have the books that attract my interest and attention. RFB&D was particularly helpful in supplying books in a very timely manner when my daughter and I participated in a mother/daughter book club while she was in middle school.
E-books offer much promise, and the nearly worldwide adoption of the DAISY standard and the acceptance of the very similar NISO standard in the USA are very encouraging developments indeed. But, we're far from the day when people who are blind can access electronic copies of best-sellers, college textbooks, or the newest cookbooks that rate reviews in the cooking magazines or newspaper food sections. I believe that the day is coming, and I'm already saving my pennies for a Victor or a BrailleNote, which promises to make the e-texts which can be accessed with Microsoft Reader software available to users of those devices as well. I look forward to a time when a portable device will make reading digitized books as easy for me as it is for others who can smell the ink on the pages of the books they purchase from Amazon or Barnes and Noble. However, according to an estimate I read last year, less than one percent of all books are available in any accessible formats today. A New Approach from Bookshare.org
A new approach to making books available to people who cannot read standard print is just about to emerge. The project, which is the brainchild of Jim Fruchterman, CEO of Benetech, Inc., is called BookShare. Here's how it will work. People who use optical scanner recognition (OCR) systems to convert print to digital text so as to read them with a screen-reader or a dedicated system, like the Kurzweil 1000 or Humanware/Freedom Scientific's Ruby or Open Book, will send the scanned text to a central location (at BookShare.org); there, other people will evaluate the scanned texts for completeness, readability, authenticity, etc.; and then, the books will be made available for BookShare subscribers to download as digitized text and enjoy for themselves. Bookshare.org is a lending library which represents the kind of thing that all of us mean when we talk about "community."
Approximately 50,000 people and organizations are using optical character recognition and scanning systems to access printed texts which are not otherwise available in accessible formats.
Scanning a book can take several hours, and proofreading the resultant product can take several more. Until now, this process has been repeatedly accomplished on many of the same books because, until now, there was no way to share the results of scanning and converting books into accessible formats. Bookshare.org will change all of that -- in mid-February 2002. What about the copyright laws?
It is not an infringement of copyright for an authorized entity to reproduce or to distribute copies of a previously published, non-dramatic literary work if the copies are reproduced or distributed in specialized formats exclusively for use by blind or other people with disabilities. Bookshare.org will provide an Internet-based mechanism to allow users with reading disabilities and the organizations that serve them to legally share books and other copyrighted documents.
All the books which will be made available via Bookshare.org will meet the following criteria: Copies may not be reproduced or distributed in a format other than a specialized format (i.e., Braille, audio, or digital text) exclusively for use by blind or other people with disabilities; must bear a notice that any further reproduction or distribution in a format other than a specialized format is an infringement; and must include a copyright notice identifying the copyright owner and the date of the original publication. Who Will Be Able To Use the Site?
Only blind or other people with disabilities that affect their ability to access print, or organizations serving them, such as schools, will be permitted to download copyrighted books. Bookshare will follow the same procedures and standards now in use by the NLS. Therefore, a Bookshare user will have to register and supply a signed certification completed by an appropriate professional in the field of disability services education, medicine, psychology or a related area. The certifier must be a recognized expert who can attest to the physical basis that limits the applicant's use of standard print. Appropriate certifying experts may differ from disability to disability. For example, in the case of blindness and visual impairments, an appropriate person to certify the disability could be a physician, ophthalmologist, or optometrist. In the case of learning disability, a neurologist, learning disability specialist, or psychologist with a background in learning disabilities might provide the appropriate certification. If you have already been certified as a qualified user for RFB&D or the NLS, that certification will entitle you to become a member of the Bookshare.org community. Bookshare.org's Approach to DRM
Recognizing that the copyright law exception is a valuable privilege for people with disabilities, and that their commitment to protecting the rights of authors and publishers has helped to enlist support within the publishing industry for their accessibility efforts, Bookshare.org will implement a digital rights management (DRM) plan which will include the following seven components: Access to Bookshare.org will be restricted to only qualified entities and people; each e-book will contain copyright and limited access notices; each book will be encrypted for each specific user; each downloaded book will contain a "watermark;" each user will be required to sign an agreement to abide by the copyright law; Bookshare.org will put in place a database for tracking potential abuse, including posting a downloaded book to other web sites; Bookshare.org will maintain a security watch system to flag potential misuse. These measures are designed to make it easy for qualified users to get access to the books they want to read while making it very difficult for the system to be misused or to violate the copyright provisions which make the whole system possible. Books Will Be Provided By Members of the Disabled Community
Blind and visually impaired readers scan thousands of books and periodicals into electronic formats every day. Former ACB president Paul Edwards has scanned and made thousands of books available for his own personal reading pleasure on various versions of the BrailleLite during the last several years. Fruchterman told me that Edwards has already contributed more than 3,000 books to the community, and that, in fact, Edwards is the biggest single contributor to Bookshare.org. A Range of
Options in Terms of Quality
Bookshare.org cannot guarantee the quality of the books it will make available, but the organization has faith in the members of the disabled community who will be scanning and contributing the books to the online facility. Jim Fruchterman told me, "People need to understand that there is a quality difference between scanned books and the books they get from NLS and RFB&D; these entities invest a lot in quality control. What we're trying to do is not to deliver a set of books with the highest quality. Instead, we're delivering books right away, and really cheaply."
Fruchterman told me that he expects this method to produce a library of tens of thousands of high-quality books and periodicals shortly after its launch this month. Many of these publications will be carefully proofread, providing high quality full text, with structure and audio, and books that meet appropriate criteria will be identified as "Proofread," among the list of available titles. The great majority, however, will simply be scanned books, redistributed in a digital format.
Thousands of disabled people invest many hours to scan a book each day. The opportunity to instantly get a book equal in quality to a personal OCR scan will lower a major barrier to access.
Text to Speech and Braille
Bookshare.org's approach relies on users' having a text-to-speech product such as JFW, WindowEyes, or Connect OutLoud, to read the text aloud, or a Braille product to present the text in Braille. The book format will be based on the DAISY/NISO ebook format, which is an XML standard usable with a variety of adaptive technology software products. Therefore, books will be readable by all the leading screen-reading and text reading programs. For Braille readers, a grade 2 Braille extension using the BRF format will be implemented. When I spoke with Jim Fruchterman in mid-December, he told me that Benetech was in the process of negotiating an agreement with Visuaide, the company which markets the Victor, to include with each subscription to Bookshare.org, a version of appropriate software for reading downloaded books with that device. What Are the Advantages of Bookshare.org?
Bookshare.org offers a number of advantages to its users. While the quality of many titles may be inferior to that of books produced professionally by entities like the NLS and RFB&D, some of the advantages the Bookshare option will provide include these: Bookshare.org ebooks will be available in minutes, not days or weeks. Bookshare.org ebooks should be available for many more titles than are currently available.
Bookshare.org ebooks should be as good or better than scanning books oneself. Educational institutions with the responsibility to provide accessible materials will benefit greatly from the products of Bookshare.org, for they will be able to obtain texts with minimal effort or cost by collaborating with schools across the country.
A Multitude of Users
A recent survey conducted by the NLS found that two million people with some type of visual impairment may be eligible to take advantage of the services they offer, and an other million with physical conditions such as paralysis, missing arms or hands, lack of muscle coordination, or prolonged weakness could benefit from the use of reading materials in recorded form. Benetech's own research leads them to believe that there are 100,000 eligible individuals who actively utilize computer technology to access publications. These individuals, coupled with the client base of organizations like the NLS will serve as the core of the Bookshare.org user base. However, because the copyright law exception that Bookshare.org is relying upon is currently an exception only in the United States, Bookshare.org will not be available to users outside the USA. Modest Subscription Fees
Bookshare.org has modest financial requirements, since a web-based service powered by volunteer/users offers tremendous cost savings. Jim Fruchterman told me that Bookshare.org plans to offer books for download as a modestly priced subscription service to qualifying users and the organizations that serve them. There will also be an opportunity for financially disadvantaged users to earn reduced fees by providing scanned books or proofreading services. The financial objective for Bookshare.org is to be operating at a break-even level after two years of operations, to ensure its long-term viability to provide its services to the disabled community.
As of mid-December 2001, he told me that between 12,000 and 14,000 books had already been submitted to Bookshare.org. At that time, nearly 100 volunteers and the not-for-profit's six employees were processing books at a rate of 600 per week.
Sign Up
Bookshare.org is expected to be operational and ready to accept your membership applications in mid-February 2002.
You can sign up with http://www.bookshare.org for $25. Then, it will cost $50 for an annual subscription, which will entitle you to download as many books as it's possible for you to read. (We'll check with Paul Edwards in about a year to find out exactly how many books that may turn out to be.) Just go to www.bookshare.org, fill out the application form (which is, of course, accessible with your screen-reader), mail in the certification documentation, and the fee, and you'll be set to go.
And if you're one of those people who has been obsessively scanning and reading books since you first laid hands on a scanner or Kurzweil 1000 or Open Book, and if you were a diligent and careful scanner who remembered to scan every single page, including the page that contained the copyright, then you probably already have a wealth of materials to contribute to this site. For guidance about scanning books and submitting them, turn to the web site for comprehensive, easy to follow instructions.
Maybe the next time I hear an interesting author on the Dianne Rehm show, or "All Things Considered," or I read a review of a fantastic new cookbook that allows readers to prepare nutritious and delicious meals in a matter of minutes, I'll be able to search for and find the title within a day or a week or so, and be reading the book or trying out the recipe along with everyone else who has heard the review or read the newspaper article. Let me go plunk another quarter into that piggy bank named Victor. I think the day when I can read what I want, when I want to read it is just around the corner.