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Description
ABSTRACT
Library services for blind and visually impaired people (VIPs) have been inextricably tied up with alternative format production, which has never risen above 4 percent of standard-text publishing. The impact of digital publishing has been modest on Braille, modified print and audio; this partly results from production methods but also from defensive copyright in which the rights of authors outweigh consumer access rights. In this instance librarians should: assert customer rights against author rights; require piracy evidence; work towards a global digital accessibility library; and advocate a generic right to information. In a global digitally converged environment VIPs will need help with navigation, data evaluation and file migration; these needs will alter the traditional, neutral, role of librarians, transforming them into facilitators, covering what were traditionally described as broadcasting and telecommunications. The biggest single problem for VIPs will be the explosion of digital static and moving pictures.
INTRODUCTION
I am not a "normal" or representative library user, if there is such a phenomenon, not the man on the Clapham omnibus nor the little old lady from Peoria. I learned Braille at a special primary school for blind children; I attended a standard secondary school and studied at Cambridge and Harvard. I have been deeply involved in the operations of the Royal National Institute of the Blind (RNIB) and the National Library for the Blind (NLB) in the area of Braille production and library services as a consultant and as a trustee. I have worked in services for blind and visually impaired people (VIPs) in more than seventy, mostly developing, countries and I am now vice chair of RNIB and studying for a master's degree in systematic theology. My day job is concerned with the convergence of broadcasting, computing and telecommunications with a bias towards social inclusion that embraces the concerns of VIPs. I am a broadcasting regulator in the UK with de facto responsibilities for accessible content and media literacy. I sit on the Digital TV Group concerned with the engineering involved in the launch of digital television and I spent many years as an active participant in the World Wide Web Consortium (W3C) Web Accessibility Initiative (WM). (1) Almost uniquely, my work spans that massive gulf between engineers and legislators.
This article will provide a somewhat superficial overview of the issues of content accessibility in the digital environment as they affect VIPs and, to some extent, librarians; and, of course, how these two sets of factors might knit together. An article such as this can often fall some way between being indicative and comprehensive; this is definitely the former which accounts for the frequent occurrence of lists. It largely leaves to one side such issues as fundamental rights, finance, and complex technical issues. Its aim is to provide a narrative that links analogue alternative format provision with the opportunities and challenges that lie ahead in the converged digital environment.
ALTERNATIVE FORMAT PRODUCTION
Unlike a general commentary on standard print library services where the supply of material for loan, as set against the supply of material published, can be taken for granted, any commentary on the history and present status of library services for VIPs would be incomplete without some consideration of the interstices of alternative format publishing and production. Whereas the task of the print librarian is to analyze publishers' lists of books, periodicals and journals to see what fraction of the whole oeuvre best fits the remit and budget of a particular library, the alternative format librarian is loath to reject any material and in most places will also have the task of deciding which items in the mass of printed material available should be rendered in alternative formats.
The RNIB estimates that approximately 4 percent of books published in the United Kingdom (UK) are rendered in alternative formats (primarily audio) while so little nonbook material is thus rendered that it corrects to zero percent (Lockyer, Creaser, & Davies, 2005). The selection criteria, in the UK at least, for the production of alternative format materials may be conveniently, though not entirely tidily, split into three types:
* Popular works of fiction and biography for general readers
* "Classic" fiction and nonfiction whose contemporaneously perceived virtues justify immediate incorporation Ad hoc rendering in response to individual needs, mostly in connection with formal education
With the possible exception of contemporary light fiction, the UK holdings fall short in every category but particularly with respect to
* contemporary, as opposed to outdated, academic material, not least in subjects that are incorrectly thought to change very little over time, such as philosophy and theology;
* popular nonfiction and lifestyle material frequently based on public service broadcasting;
* serious fiction;
* ephemera; and
* pornography. (2)
Another production factor that cannot be overlooked is the time gap between print and alternative format production. When you think about it, whether you are a student or a voracious reader who likes to discuss new books with friends, a two-year wait for a book is destructively long. In a system that cannot hope to meet demand time is the great queue-cutter.
This dearth has been a constant factor in access to material in alternative formats, made more understandable because of the very different production techniques involved in creating an audio book, a modified print book, and a Braille book. During the first quarter century of the digital age during which convergences in production have become more obvious, the impact of computing on Braille, modified print, and synthetic speech production has been surprisingly small. There are a number of reasons for this that apply in different degrees in different places but the major factors are
* the continuing management of Braille production systems on traditional, "sheltered workshop" lines with only minor changes in production practice between analogue and digital production (notably the failure to use electronic tools for quality control) ;
* an unbalanced emphasis, as the result of misguided lobbying, on automated Braille translation software coding, as opposed to layout; and,
* a false perception that there is a trade-off, rather than a complementarity, between Braille and large print from a single, digital file.
Many people use the term "large print" but this overlooks a minority requirement for example for those suffering from retinitis pigmentosa--for smaller than standard print; and it overlooks the crucial role of font selection.
One final remark may help to explain the balance of alternative format production which, in terms of the amount of production compared with potential users, is heavily skewed in favor of Braille and against large print. Organizations that serve VIPs tend, quite properly, to take account of the views of users. Not only in "the West" but all over the world, the vocal user community that contributes most to policy formulation consists of the tiny minority of congenitally or paediatrically blind people who have grown up in the visual impairment education system as Braille users as opposed to adventitiously blind people who... |
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