Opening the Book
An Academic's Perspective on NFB's Settlement with Google
by Paul Harpur
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From the Editor: Paul Harpur, who is a lawyer, associate lecturer at
the Queensland University of Technology in Australia, and a PhD candidate,
offered to write a short article for the Braille Monitor about the
importance of the NFB/Google settlement to print-disabled academics and
professional researchers. This is what he says:
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Open any book on research methodologies and the first step almost
always involves reading leading textbooks in the field. For researchers who
cannot read standard print this first step creates a substantial barrier.
Some researchers simply ignore textbooks and go straight to journal
articles, reports, legislation, or case law. It is possible with back
referencing to adopt this research methodology, but it is far from ideal.
In most situations failing to read leading textbooks means the resulting
paper lacks the degree of analysis that can only be provided by leading
scholars in the field. Arguably the settlement the NFB reached with Google
late last year will significantly improve the ability of print-disabled
researchers to access textbooks.
Googlebooks have scanned over a million books into digital form and
created access online. For books that are out of copyright, users are able
to click on a button and download the entire book in PDF. For books still
subject to copyright protection, Googlebook will provide more limited
access. The Googlebook search engine will identify the pages in most
textbooks where search terms appear and can provide a table of contents
with most textbooks. Until recently this great resource has been a closed
book for print-disabled users who use screen readers such as JAWS or Window-
Eyes. The settlement the NFB reached with Google should open all these
Googlebook services to print-disabled users.
If implemented, the NFB/Google settlement will arguably provide print-
disabled researchers substantial assistance in performing high-quality
research. Currently a print-disabled researcher can identify titles of
likely textbooks on Googlebook. Because the contents page and page numbers
generally don't appear in an accessible format, there is no way to identify
what part of the book is potentially useful. Without a table of contents a
researcher is unable to determine if the title means the book has useful
chapters. For example, the title of a book on universal design may indicate
that it is relevant, but the chapter headings may indicate that the book
adopts an extremely legalistic approach when the researcher is after a
practical guide to implementing universal design. The ability of the
researcher to read the table of contents will increase his or her ability
to find relevant chapters.
The identification of relevant page numbers in textbooks has the
potential of substantially reducing the time print-disabled students spend
scanning library books. Generally researchers can now identify only that a
particular chapter has information on a point. If the researcher is after
an obscure point, the information may be found on a few pages. Currently
researchers need to scan an entire chapter and scroll through it to find
the relevant pages. The NFB settlement with Google should alter this
procedure and enable researchers to identify relevant pages with greater
ease. Rather than scanning entire books, print-disabled researchers will be
able to identify what pages they think could be relevant and scan only
those. This will save both scanning and reading time.
Print-disabled researchers associated with an educational institution
in the USA, Canada, Europe, Australia, New Zealand, and many other
countries have a number of the textbooks provided to them on disc in
electronic files. While this is fantastic, often these textbooks in
alternate format do not enable the student to identify which page they are
reading. This becomes a substantial problem if they need to cite or quote
the textbook. The Harvard Bluebook, the American Psychological Association
Citation Guide, and most other referencing guides require authors to
pinpoint references. For sighted researchers this entails simply looking to
the top or bottom of the page. For people using an electronic version,
pinpointing citations can involve serious complications. If for example the
researcher knows the quote comes from a chapter of thirty pages but does
not know precisely what page, he or she must ask a sighted person to assist
in checking a paper copy of the textbook. When Googlebook is fully
accessible, a researcher with a print disability should be able simply to
search Googlebook for the title and part of the phrase. The results should
enable researchers to identify quickly and independently the page on which
the quote appears. This will create greater independence and save time.
Arguably the technology revolution creates the possibility to
increase universal design and to enable people with print disabilities to
access material without having to scan and convert it. Sadly the potential
of these technological advancements is often not fully realized for legal
and policy reasons. The NFB/Google settlement represents a move to embrace
universal design and harness the potential of technological advancements to
reduce barriers to people with print disabilities succeeding educationally
and professionally.
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