Jess:
I was reading a Syndicated Columnists Weekly, and ran across an article I think
would interest you.
It is entitled "Justice Department Settles Kindle On-Campus Cases,"
It is by Associated Press. It ran in the Wall Street Journal on January 18,
2010. It discusses the use of Ebooks in classrooms, and the charge against
Amazon.com re the Kindle's lack of accessibility.
I could send you the braille copy if you can't find it on line and are
interested.
Carolyn
----- Original Message -----
From: Jess
To: macvisionaries@googlegroups.com
Sent: Monday, February 01, 2010 11:45 AM
Subject: Re: A call to action!
Thanks to everyone that has responded so far to my post.
For those people who suggest that we just scan our books, call me a breaker
of the old tradition, but scanners are just not practical anymore. More and
more books are going to be on the electronic internet, and I think that a good
start is for us to get a following. We should post about this issue on blogs,
twitter, and anywhere people will listen to us.
I appreciate those that feel I have a valid complaint, and I think that all
of us who really care about this should contact the publishers to discuss this
with them.
I completely forgot about other print-disabled people sharing my concerns,
but that just makes my case all the stronger.
On Feb 1, 2010, at 12:05 PM, Carolyn wrote:
Jes:
I'm not currently a student, but you have a vallid complaint. I wound up
scanning a print textbook for a friend of mine after he purchased the e-book
and found it inaccessible for the reasons you state.
I'm not sure where one would start, but I would think about consulting
disabled student services at your school, and also contact the NFB in Maryland
to check out whether anyone there is addressing this issue.
HTH
Carolyn
----- Original Message -----
From: Jess
To: macvisionaries@googlegroups.com
Sent: Monday, February 01, 2010 5:49 AM
Subject: A call to action!
First, a question.
How many people like to read books? I know I do. How many people were
overjoyed that entire text books were going to be put online? I was. However, a
lot of EBooks cannot be read by any screen reader we have today. Why? Simply
put, the text of the book is contained within an OCR image, and there is a
special reader required to read them. These are not your standard PDF files,
and the books are protected by DRM, so there is no way to extract the contents
into programs like text edit.
As a book worm, I tried out the Kindle app for the IPhone, and was
delighted to find that a book that I wanted to read was available on the Kindle
store. However, my joy turned to bitter disappointment when I realized that
while I could navigate the book's table of contents, cover, and chapters to an
extent, the text was completely inaccessible. Furthermore, my text books for my
classes were not usable. Ladies and gentlemen, I fear that unless we as blind
consumers stand up, and demand that these publishers put their text books into
standard native file formats, such as pdf or doc, we will lose a lot of access
to books, and our chances to succeed at college will be severely diminished.
So, anyone have any thoughts of what to do?
I thought about starting a petition to ask Amazon to require their
publishers to make their books usable, but figured that I would be a laughing
stock for doing so, as most publishers probably wouldn't have the time to read,
much less consider what I was asking for.
My point is, as long as E texts get more and more graphical, our chances
to read will be greatly impaired, and as more and more books become exclusively
online, we will lose access to the latest editions of books altogether.
Thoughts, anyone?
You may also skype me at pianomagic88
Jes
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