What I did on my summer holidays.

What I did on my summer holidays.

[Kirk Reiser]

A number of folks wanted a report about my attending the Daisy
consortium IPP meeting this week.  I will try to give an overview
although it was fairly confusing even to me.

A little background first of all.  In the U.S. there is legislation
known as the Chafy amendment to the copyright act which states that
for the purpose of materials for the print disabled anything may be
produced in an alternative format without getting permission from the
publishers.  This has been done up until now by producing those
materials either in braille (obviously an alternative format) and four
track 15/16th speed recordings.  The thinking there being that most
non-print handicapped folks didn't have access to that type of
specialized equipment.  Other countries around the world have
different laws but most of them are nowhere near as restrictive as the
states law.  To complicate things a tad more there are certain
institutions which provide their users or subscribers with periodic
subscriptions which need to be renewed for access to their
information.  There is also the issue of organizations wishing to
sell/rent books to print disabled people and provide intellectual
property protection (IPP) to the publishers supplying the materials.

Okay, our job was to try to come up with a mechanism to make digital
talking books different enough to be considered an alternative format
to meet the Chafy amendment.  We discussed a few different methods but
pretty quickly determined the best thing was to encrypt the materials
so that no one except authorized print handicapped individuals could
have access to them.  It was also decided that another level of
encryption should be available for organizations wanting to sell/rent
they're service.  Now, I have to say that this didn't go down very
popularly with almost all other countries except the states.  One of
the things I found most telling is that the publishers give lip
service to wanting to protect the authors but in fact really wish to
protect their own mark up of the texts in xml/smil.  They feel the
real worth is in their contribution to the material rather than the
original authors work.

Another thing people need to realize is the print impaired community
for maybe the first time has come up with a system which is the
cats-ass from a multimedia perspective and a lot of publishing houses
want to get their grubby hands on the technology or specification.

That's pretty much the situation as I know it.  It was a lot more
detailed as in we designed almost the entire implementation.  I worked
with a bunch of really nice folks from all over the world and I only
wish I had had more time to sit and talk about blindness issues in
those other places.  I will leave it up to Janina to correct any
blatant mistakes of which I'm capable of loads.  If folks wish to
discuss any of this in more detail you can ask me about it on the
reflector.

  Kirk

Re: What I did on my summer holidays.

[Janina Sajka]

I think Kirk got it about right below. Especially the part about "summer," 
because it was certainly unseasonally warm in Toronto last week! <grin>

One note about the 15/16 ips, four-track cassettes as specialized media. 
This format was defined explicitly as a specialized format for blind users 
of specially produced content. One can think of this format as a kind of 
analog tape intellectual property protection scheme. We can hope and dream 
of a day when we don't need such things, but we need them now if we're 
going to have access to large quantities of published books in a 
format/medium that really works for us. 

I should note that many countries are jealous of the U.S.' Chafee 
Amendement. In most other countries (though not all), organizations 
producing braille or audio (and soon the DAISY format) need to get 
permission in writing from copyright holders before they can begin to 
produce a title. This takes a lot of time, and, of course, producing 
titles takes a lot of time to. One side benefit of the Chafee Amendment 
means that titles can be made available much more quickly than before.

The goal, of course, is to get as many titles produced in the DAISY format 
as quickly as possible, and to get them into users' hands as quickly as 
possible. Another goal is to give users a wide range of choices in the 
technology they use to "read" this content. There are already some 
hardware devices that 'play" DAISY titles--and there will be more. There 
are also software players already--and there will be many more of these, 
on all the OS used by us.

So, I am very glad that Kirk was with us last week. The Digital Talking 
Book technology is going to be very important to our community, and we 
need the widest range of experience and viewpoint in getting the basics 
right so that anyone and everyone who qualifies can participate.

PS: If you live in the U.K., you will have the option of titles in DAISY 
late this spring. Here in the States, we'll have to wait a bit longer.


-- 
	
				Janina Sajka, Director
				Technology Research and Development
				Governmental Relations Group
				American Foundation for the Blind (AFB)

Email: janina@afb.net		Phone: (202) 408-8175

Chair, Accessibility SIG
Open Electronic Book Forum (OEBF)
http://www.openebook.org

Re: What I did on my summer holidays.

[Saqib Shaikh]

Hi Janina,

I was really happy to hear that we'll be getting Daisy books in the spring!

What you say about "getting permission from the publishers" hits home right
enough. While this law is on the verge of changing here in the UK it means:
1. Books are rediculously out of date. The most recent braille title on
computing we have is the MS-DOS 5.0 users manual!
2. Tapes are also out of date. I wanted a Tanenbaum book for my hardware
course (something like 5th editicion 2001). 4th edition would have been ok
but I got 1st edition, 1978. Three years before I was born! So I got to
learn about how computers were long before I was thought of <grin>
3. We're also excluded from the US National Braille Library's ebraille
initiative and also the bookshare project.
4. To finish off my ranting I did the following research a year and a half
ago before I started my degree. Following the findings I have given up on
books in special formats and just have a humna reader.
Findings:
I was told that a thousand page computer science text would take approx 1.5
years to put onto tape. Approx 3-5 years to put into braille.
A braille/taping centre at a nearby university offered to do the job until
they realised that nobody knew anything about squiggly brackets etc and sad
no can do. Finally, I looked into putting a book into braille privately from
two different sources. Both stated that they would charge approx £30 or $50
per hour, making a grand total of 10 thousand pounds approx fifteen thousand
dollars.

I'll leave you with that thought.

Saqib
----- Original Message -----
From: "Janina Sajka" <janina@afb.net>
To: <speakup@braille.uwo.ca>
Sent: Monday, January 28, 2002 2:29 AM
Subject: Re: What I did on my summer holidays.


> I think Kirk got it about right below. Especially the part about "summer,"
> because it was certainly unseasonally warm in Toronto last week! <grin>
>
> One note about the 15/16 ips, four-track cassettes as specialized media.
> This format was defined explicitly as a specialized format for blind users
> of specially produced content. One can think of this format as a kind of
> analog tape intellectual property protection scheme. We can hope and dream
> of a day when we don't need such things, but we need them now if we're
> going to have access to large quantities of published books in a
> format/medium that really works for us.
>
> I should note that many countries are jealous of the U.S.' Chafee
> Amendement. In most other countries (though not all), organizations
> producing braille or audio (and soon the DAISY format) need to get
> permission in writing from copyright holders before they can begin to
> produce a title. This takes a lot of time, and, of course, producing
> titles takes a lot of time to. One side benefit of the Chafee Amendment
> means that titles can be made available much more quickly than before.
>
> The goal, of course, is to get as many titles produced in the DAISY format
> as quickly as possible, and to get them into users' hands as quickly as
> possible. Another goal is to give users a wide range of choices in the
> technology they use to "read" this content. There are already some
> hardware devices that 'play" DAISY titles--and there will be more. There
> are also software players already--and there will be many more of these,
> on all the OS used by us.
>
> So, I am very glad that Kirk was with us last week. The Digital Talking
> Book technology is going to be very important to our community, and we
> need the widest range of experience and viewpoint in getting the basics
> right so that anyone and everyone who qualifies can participate.
>
> PS: If you live in the U.K., you will have the option of titles in DAISY
> late this spring. Here in the States, we'll have to wait a bit longer.
>
>
> --
>
> Janina Sajka, Director
> Technology Research and Development
> Governmental Relations Group
> American Foundation for the Blind (AFB)
>
> Email: janina@afb.net Phone: (202) 408-8175
>
> Chair, Accessibility SIG
> Open Electronic Book Forum (OEBF)
> http://www.openebook.org
>
>
> _______________________________________________
> Speakup mailing list
> Speakup@braille.uwo.ca
> http://speech.braille.uwo.ca/mailman/listinfo/speakup

Re: What I did on my summer holidays.

[Thomas Ward]

Good Lord! I am glad I live in America. My college was thankfully nice
enough to scan, edit, and provide all my college texts in etext format if
they could not be obtained directly from the publishers.
Then, we have RFBND which does help, but often it doesn't get the materials
on hand fast enough.
It sounds like Daisy books  is going to be a God send for you guys.

----- Original Message -----
From: Saqib Shaikh <ss@saqibshaikh.com>
To: <speakup@braille.uwo.ca>
Sent: Sunday, January 27, 2002 9:50 PM
Subject: Re: What I did on my summer holidays.


> Hi Janina,
>
> I was really happy to hear that we'll be getting Daisy books in the
spring!
>
> What you say about "getting permission from the publishers" hits home
right
> enough. While this law is on the verge of changing here in the UK it
means:
> 1. Books are rediculously out of date. The most recent braille title on
> computing we have is the MS-DOS 5.0 users manual!
> 2. Tapes are also out of date. I wanted a Tanenbaum book for my hardware
> course (something like 5th editicion 2001). 4th edition would have been ok
> but I got 1st edition, 1978. Three years before I was born! So I got to
> learn about how computers were long before I was thought of <grin>
> 3. We're also excluded from the US National Braille Library's ebraille
> initiative and also the bookshare project.
> 4. To finish off my ranting I did the following research a year and a half
> ago before I started my degree. Following the findings I have given up on
> books in special formats and just have a humna reader.
> Findings:
> I was told that a thousand page computer science text would take approx
1.5
> years to put onto tape. Approx 3-5 years to put into braille.
> A braille/taping centre at a nearby university offered to do the job until
> they realised that nobody knew anything about squiggly brackets etc and
sad
> no can do. Finally, I looked into putting a book into braille privately
from
> two different sources. Both stated that they would charge approx £30 or
$50
> per hour, making a grand total of 10 thousand pounds approx fifteen
thousand
> dollars.
>
> I'll leave you with that thought.
>
> Saqib
> ----- Original Message -----
> From: "Janina Sajka" <janina@afb.net>
> To: <speakup@braille.uwo.ca>
> Sent: Monday, January 28, 2002 2:29 AM
> Subject: Re: What I did on my summer holidays.
>
>
> > I think Kirk got it about right below. Especially the part about
"summer,"
> > because it was certainly unseasonally warm in Toronto last week! <grin>
> >
> > One note about the 15/16 ips, four-track cassettes as specialized media.
> > This format was defined explicitly as a specialized format for blind
users
> > of specially produced content. One can think of this format as a kind of
> > analog tape intellectual property protection scheme. We can hope and
dream
> > of a day when we don't need such things, but we need them now if we're
> > going to have access to large quantities of published books in a
> > format/medium that really works for us.
> >
> > I should note that many countries are jealous of the U.S.' Chafee
> > Amendement. In most other countries (though not all), organizations
> > producing braille or audio (and soon the DAISY format) need to get
> > permission in writing from copyright holders before they can begin to
> > produce a title. This takes a lot of time, and, of course, producing
> > titles takes a lot of time to. One side benefit of the Chafee Amendment
> > means that titles can be made available much more quickly than before.
> >
> > The goal, of course, is to get as many titles produced in the DAISY
format
> > as quickly as possible, and to get them into users' hands as quickly as
> > possible. Another goal is to give users a wide range of choices in the
> > technology they use to "read" this content. There are already some
> > hardware devices that 'play" DAISY titles--and there will be more. There
> > are also software players already--and there will be many more of these,
> > on all the OS used by us.
> >
> > So, I am very glad that Kirk was with us last week. The Digital Talking
> > Book technology is going to be very important to our community, and we
> > need the widest range of experience and viewpoint in getting the basics
> > right so that anyone and everyone who qualifies can participate.
> >
> > PS: If you live in the U.K., you will have the option of titles in DAISY
> > late this spring. Here in the States, we'll have to wait a bit longer.
> >
> >
> > --
> >
> > Janina Sajka, Director
> > Technology Research and Development
> > Governmental Relations Group
> > American Foundation for the Blind (AFB)
> >
> > Email: janina@afb.net Phone: (202) 408-8175
> >
> > Chair, Accessibility SIG
> > Open Electronic Book Forum (OEBF)
> > http://www.openebook.org
> >
> >
> > _______________________________________________
> > Speakup mailing list
> > Speakup@braille.uwo.ca
> > http://speech.braille.uwo.ca/mailman/listinfo/speakup
>
>
> _______________________________________________
> Speakup mailing list
> Speakup@braille.uwo.ca
> http://speech.braille.uwo.ca/mailman/listinfo/speakup
>

Re: What I did on my summer holidays.

[Janina Sajka]

Part of the problem is that creating braille or tape versions is generally 
a "one-off" done by hand from a printed page. Not very efficient. What 
we're trying to eingineer with NISO/DAISY, and with our participation in 
the OEBF, is access to the underlying text in a well-marked-up XML (or 
SGML). If we can get publishers to:

1.)	Use good markup;
2.)	Allow us to build a server-based delivery system;

we should be able to do much much better. But, Saqib, don't hold your 
breath! <grin>

I do think this can work, eventually. Either, the publishers files, as 
sold, would be directly accessible, or we would use an AFB server, or an 
RNIB server, etc., etc., to re-package the contents in the NISO/DAISY 
wrapper. I call this "Electronic Chafee," by the way. We're working on 
this in my office--it's one of my long term goals.

One more note about Chafee ...

While it's helped us here in the States, it has harmed everyone else. 
Here's why. The old way, before there was a Chafee Amendment, had the U.S. 
National Library Service for the Blind (and other agneices) requesting 
permission by hand, one book at a time. Well, it took no extra effort to 
request international rights, as well as national (U.S.) rights when they 
did it this way. Now, under Chafee, there's no rights request, because 
that's what Chafee is--a blanket check on national rights. So, no 
international rights are being requested by anyone here in the States, and 
it's slower and harder for libraries/agencies outside of the States to get 
this.

 On Mon, 28 Jan 2002, 
Saqib Shaikh wrote:

> Hi Janina,
> 
> I was really happy to hear that we'll be getting Daisy books in the spring!
> 
> What you say about "getting permission from the publishers" hits home right
> enough. While this law is on the verge of changing here in the UK it means:
> 1. Books are rediculously out of date. The most recent braille title on
> computing we have is the MS-DOS 5.0 users manual!
> 2. Tapes are also out of date. I wanted a Tanenbaum book for my hardware
> course (something like 5th editicion 2001). 4th edition would have been ok
> but I got 1st edition, 1978. Three years before I was born! So I got to
> learn about how computers were long before I was thought of <grin>
> 3. We're also excluded from the US National Braille Library's ebraille
> initiative and also the bookshare project.
> 4. To finish off my ranting I did the following research a year and a half
> ago before I started my degree. Following the findings I have given up on
> books in special formats and just have a humna reader.
> Findings:
> I was told that a thousand page computer science text would take approx 1.5
> years to put onto tape. Approx 3-5 years to put into braille.
> A braille/taping centre at a nearby university offered to do the job until
> they realised that nobody knew anything about squiggly brackets etc and sad
> no can do. Finally, I looked into putting a book into braille privately from
> two different sources. Both stated that they would charge approx £30 or $50
> per hour, making a grand total of 10 thousand pounds approx fifteen thousand
> dollars.
> 
> I'll leave you with that thought.
> 
> Saqib
> ----- Original Message -----
> From: "Janina Sajka" <janina@afb.net>
> To: <speakup@braille.uwo.ca>
> Sent: Monday, January 28, 2002 2:29 AM
> Subject: Re: What I did on my summer holidays.
> 
> 
> > I think Kirk got it about right below. Especially the part about "summer,"
> > because it was certainly unseasonally warm in Toronto last week! <grin>
> >
> > One note about the 15/16 ips, four-track cassettes as specialized media.
> > This format was defined explicitly as a specialized format for blind users
> > of specially produced content. One can think of this format as a kind of
> > analog tape intellectual property protection scheme. We can hope and dream
> > of a day when we don't need such things, but we need them now if we're
> > going to have access to large quantities of published books in a
> > format/medium that really works for us.
> >
> > I should note that many countries are jealous of the U.S.' Chafee
> > Amendement. In most other countries (though not all), organizations
> > producing braille or audio (and soon the DAISY format) need to get
> > permission in writing from copyright holders before they can begin to
> > produce a title. This takes a lot of time, and, of course, producing
> > titles takes a lot of time to. One side benefit of the Chafee Amendment
> > means that titles can be made available much more quickly than before.
> >
> > The goal, of course, is to get as many titles produced in the DAISY format
> > as quickly as possible, and to get them into users' hands as quickly as
> > possible. Another goal is to give users a wide range of choices in the
> > technology they use to "read" this content. There are already some
> > hardware devices that 'play" DAISY titles--and there will be more. There
> > are also software players already--and there will be many more of these,
> > on all the OS used by us.
> >
> > So, I am very glad that Kirk was with us last week. The Digital Talking
> > Book technology is going to be very important to our community, and we
> > need the widest range of experience and viewpoint in getting the basics
> > right so that anyone and everyone who qualifies can participate.
> >
> > PS: If you live in the U.K., you will have the option of titles in DAISY
> > late this spring. Here in the States, we'll have to wait a bit longer.
> >
> >
> > --
> >
> > Janina Sajka, Director
> > Technology Research and Development
> > Governmental Relations Group
> > American Foundation for the Blind (AFB)
> >
> > Email: janina@afb.net Phone: (202) 408-8175
> >
> > Chair, Accessibility SIG
> > Open Electronic Book Forum (OEBF)
> > http://www.openebook.org
> >
> >
> > _______________________________________________
> > Speakup mailing list
> > Speakup@braille.uwo.ca
> > http://speech.braille.uwo.ca/mailman/listinfo/speakup
> 
> 
> _______________________________________________
> Speakup mailing list
> Speakup@braille.uwo.ca
> http://speech.braille.uwo.ca/mailman/listinfo/speakup
> 

-- 
	
				Janina Sajka, Director
				Technology Research and Development
				Governmental Relations Group
				American Foundation for the Blind (AFB)

Email: janina@afb.net		Phone: (202) 408-8175

Chair, Accessibility SIG
Open Electronic Book Forum (OEBF)
http://www.openebook.org

Re: What I did on my summer holidays.

[Kirk Wood]

On Sun, 27 Jan 2002, Janina Sajka wrote:
> Part of the problem is that creating braille or tape versions is generally 
> a "one-off" done by hand from a printed page. Not very efficient. What 
> we're trying to eingineer with NISO/DAISY, and with our participation in 
> the OEBF, is access to the underlying text in a well-marked-up XML (or 
> SGML). If we can get publishers to:
> 
> 1.)	Use good markup;
> 2.)	Allow us to build a server-based delivery system;

So is there anything to prevent agencies already doing braille translation
from the publisher files to put their work out in DAISY format? Having
helped some with the group that does most of the textbooks for k-12 in
this area, I can tell how they do it. They get the text book in electronic
format. They also get two copies of the book in print and correction
sheets.

They then have sigted people ensure that any corrections from the sheets
are marked in the print versions. They translate the braille from the
electronic version. One of the print books is available to the translator
to ensure that formatting is correct. The other goes to the proof
reader. Then the book is embossed.

Two come to mind here. The first, is that the embossing seems most
wastefull. While expansive, I feel they should move to refreshable
braille. This would allow the student to carry the entire text book as
sigted students do.

The second thing is that I find it bothersome that the same can't be done
in other situations. The small group near me translates well over 100
texts a year. Most of this is done in a matter of 4 months. It astounds
(and saddens) me that given this ability, more books aren't
available. I hope that the DAISY format can perhaps speed this up and
perhaps work toward having most books available to the blind comunity.

=======
Kirk Wood
Cpt.Kirk@1tree.net

Nowlan's Theory:
        He who hesitates is not only lost, but several miles from
        the next freeway exit.

Re: What I did on my summer holidays.

[Geoff Shang]

On Sun, 27 Jan 2002, Kirk Wood wrote:

> The first, is that the embossing seems most
> wastefull. While expansive, I feel they should move to refreshable
> braille. This would allow the student to carry the entire text book as
> sigted students do.

The problem with refreshable braille is the economics.  You can't get a
device with a braille display here in Australia for under 6 thousand.  Then
again, I guess comparing this to the money saved doing braille production
... well maybe.  though I've got to say, I'm not sure that I'd be too keen
to read all my books 1 line at a time, as opposed to one page at a time as
with regular books.  I'd hate to try and get the jist of a diagram using a
1-line display.

Geoff.

Re: What I did on my summer holidays.

[Victor Tsaran]

Hi, Janina!
DO they plan to rerecord already-existing books from the very scratch or
they will use existing tapes for new recordings augmented by indexing etc.
Vic

----- Original Message -----
From: "Janina Sajka" <janina@afb.net>
To: <speakup@braille.uwo.ca>
Sent: Monday, January 28, 2002 3:29 AM
Subject: Re: What I did on my summer holidays.


> I think Kirk got it about right below. Especially the part about "summer,"
> because it was certainly unseasonally warm in Toronto last week! <grin>
>
> One note about the 15/16 ips, four-track cassettes as specialized media.
> This format was defined explicitly as a specialized format for blind users
> of specially produced content. One can think of this format as a kind of
> analog tape intellectual property protection scheme. We can hope and dream
> of a day when we don't need such things, but we need them now if we're
> going to have access to large quantities of published books in a
> format/medium that really works for us.
>
> I should note that many countries are jealous of the U.S.' Chafee
> Amendement. In most other countries (though not all), organizations
> producing braille or audio (and soon the DAISY format) need to get
> permission in writing from copyright holders before they can begin to
> produce a title. This takes a lot of time, and, of course, producing
> titles takes a lot of time to. One side benefit of the Chafee Amendment
> means that titles can be made available much more quickly than before.
>
> The goal, of course, is to get as many titles produced in the DAISY format
> as quickly as possible, and to get them into users' hands as quickly as
> possible. Another goal is to give users a wide range of choices in the
> technology they use to "read" this content. There are already some
> hardware devices that 'play" DAISY titles--and there will be more. There
> are also software players already--and there will be many more of these,
> on all the OS used by us.
>
> So, I am very glad that Kirk was with us last week. The Digital Talking
> Book technology is going to be very important to our community, and we
> need the widest range of experience and viewpoint in getting the basics
> right so that anyone and everyone who qualifies can participate.
>
> PS: If you live in the U.K., you will have the option of titles in DAISY
> late this spring. Here in the States, we'll have to wait a bit longer.
>
>
> --
>
> Janina Sajka, Director
> Technology Research and Development
> Governmental Relations Group
> American Foundation for the Blind (AFB)
>
> Email: janina@afb.net Phone: (202) 408-8175
>
> Chair, Accessibility SIG
> Open Electronic Book Forum (OEBF)
> http://www.openebook.org
>
>
> _______________________________________________
> Speakup mailing list
> Speakup@braille.uwo.ca
> http://speech.braille.uwo.ca/mailman/listinfo/speakup
>
>

Re: What I did on my summer holidays.

[Geoff Shang]

Hi:

Don't know about elsewhere, but I know that some agencies here in Australia
have been recording their masters digitally for some time now.

Geoff.

Re: What I did on my summer holidays.

[Amanda Lee]

[-- Warning: decoded text below may be mangled, UTF-8 assumed --]
[-- Attachment #1: Type: TEXT/PLAIN; charset=X-UNKNOWN, Size: 7227 bytes --]

Wow you were the best possible case for receiving the sort of
accomodations that all of us should have and would really appreciate.

I had to accept Incomplete grades when I was in college because 1) no
textbook was available on recorded tape/forget about etext or braille;  2)
no human was calling for the "help wanted for readers" notices I had
placed on every campus bulletin board, etc.  3) I had nothing like an OCR
scanner/software for converting texts to some accessible form.

I know that if I could be attending college in the U.S. nowadays, that
there is much more that is available and accessible so we indeed have come
a loong! way and this is wonderful.

I commend the efforts of the Daisy Project and others.  We obviously still
have more to overcome such as .pdf issues and to obtain appropriate
cooperation from publishers and the like.
Still, we are so fortuneate to be around in this time to be able to avail
ourselves of what has evolved

One good example is how Oreilly Books is so cooperative with providing
their books to persons who are blind and free of charge.  Personally, I
would not mind paying the same price for books as my print-enabled
counterparts but this does open doors to information to persons who could
not afford these materials and who further cannot use a typical library
because all of those books are in print and not readily accessible.

Hang-in there Satik, access to information in an Accessible form is
improving.

Amanda Lee
Alexandria, VA



On Sun, 27 Jan 2002, Thomas Ward wrote:

> Good Lord! I am glad I live in America. My college was thankfully nice
> enough to scan, edit, and provide all my college texts in etext format if
> they could not be obtained directly from the publishers.
> Then, we have RFBND which does help, but often it doesn't get the materials
> on hand fast enough.
> It sounds like Daisy books  is going to be a God send for you guys.
>
> ----- Original Message -----
> From: Saqib Shaikh <ss@saqibshaikh.com>
> To: <speakup@braille.uwo.ca>
> Sent: Sunday, January 27, 2002 9:50 PM
> Subject: Re: What I did on my summer holidays.
>
>
> > Hi Janina,
> >
> > I was really happy to hear that we'll be getting Daisy books in the
> spring!
> >
> > What you say about "getting permission from the publishers" hits home
> right
> > enough. While this law is on the verge of changing here in the UK it
> means:
> > 1. Books are rediculously out of date. The most recent braille title on
> > computing we have is the MS-DOS 5.0 users manual!
> > 2. Tapes are also out of date. I wanted a Tanenbaum book for my hardware
> > course (something like 5th editicion 2001). 4th edition would have been ok
> > but I got 1st edition, 1978. Three years before I was born! So I got to
> > learn about how computers were long before I was thought of <grin>
> > 3. We're also excluded from the US National Braille Library's ebraille
> > initiative and also the bookshare project.
> > 4. To finish off my ranting I did the following research a year and a half
> > ago before I started my degree. Following the findings I have given up on
> > books in special formats and just have a humna reader.
> > Findings:
> > I was told that a thousand page computer science text would take approx
> 1.5
> > years to put onto tape. Approx 3-5 years to put into braille.
> > A braille/taping centre at a nearby university offered to do the job until
> > they realised that nobody knew anything about squiggly brackets etc and
> sad
> > no can do. Finally, I looked into putting a book into braille privately
> from
> > two different sources. Both stated that they would charge approx £30 or
> $50
> > per hour, making a grand total of 10 thousand pounds approx fifteen
> thousand
> > dollars.
> >
> > I'll leave you with that thought.
> >
> > Saqib
> > ----- Original Message -----
> > From: "Janina Sajka" <janina@afb.net>
> > To: <speakup@braille.uwo.ca>
> > Sent: Monday, January 28, 2002 2:29 AM
> > Subject: Re: What I did on my summer holidays.
> >
> >
> > > I think Kirk got it about right below. Especially the part about
> "summer,"
> > > because it was certainly unseasonally warm in Toronto last week! <grin>
> > >
> > > One note about the 15/16 ips, four-track cassettes as specialized media.
> > > This format was defined explicitly as a specialized format for blind
> users
> > > of specially produced content. One can think of this format as a kind of
> > > analog tape intellectual property protection scheme. We can hope and
> dream
> > > of a day when we don't need such things, but we need them now if we're
> > > going to have access to large quantities of published books in a
> > > format/medium that really works for us.
> > >
> > > I should note that many countries are jealous of the U.S.' Chafee
> > > Amendement. In most other countries (though not all), organizations
> > > producing braille or audio (and soon the DAISY format) need to get
> > > permission in writing from copyright holders before they can begin to
> > > produce a title. This takes a lot of time, and, of course, producing
> > > titles takes a lot of time to. One side benefit of the Chafee Amendment
> > > means that titles can be made available much more quickly than before.
> > >
> > > The goal, of course, is to get as many titles produced in the DAISY
> format
> > > as quickly as possible, and to get them into users' hands as quickly as
> > > possible. Another goal is to give users a wide range of choices in the
> > > technology they use to "read" this content. There are already some
> > > hardware devices that 'play" DAISY titles--and there will be more. There
> > > are also software players already--and there will be many more of these,
> > > on all the OS used by us.
> > >
> > > So, I am very glad that Kirk was with us last week. The Digital Talking
> > > Book technology is going to be very important to our community, and we
> > > need the widest range of experience and viewpoint in getting the basics
> > > right so that anyone and everyone who qualifies can participate.
> > >
> > > PS: If you live in the U.K., you will have the option of titles in DAISY
> > > late this spring. Here in the States, we'll have to wait a bit longer.
> > >
> > >
> > > --
> > >
> > > Janina Sajka, Director
> > > Technology Research and Development
> > > Governmental Relations Group
> > > American Foundation for the Blind (AFB)
> > >
> > > Email: janina@afb.net Phone: (202) 408-8175
> > >
> > > Chair, Accessibility SIG
> > > Open Electronic Book Forum (OEBF)
> > > http://www.openebook.org
> > >
> > >
> > > _______________________________________________
> > > Speakup mailing list
> > > Speakup@braille.uwo.ca
> > > http://speech.braille.uwo.ca/mailman/listinfo/speakup
> >
> >
> > _______________________________________________
> > Speakup mailing list
> > Speakup@braille.uwo.ca
> > http://speech.braille.uwo.ca/mailman/listinfo/speakup
> >
>
>
> _______________________________________________
> Speakup mailing list
> Speakup@braille.uwo.ca
> http://speech.braille.uwo.ca/mailman/listinfo/speakup
>

Re: What I did on my summer holidays.

[Janina Sajka]

The problem with current publisher files is that they're mostly in Quark, 
which is heavy on look and feel, and very low on structure. Fortunately, 
this is not just our problem, it's also a problem for the publisher who 
wants to maintain one set of source documents versionable for multiple 
output modalities such as print and ebooks. Hence, we work with the Open E 
Book Forum (http://www.openebook.org;

As to the focus on hardcopy braille, I agree with you. The emphasis must 
be on efiles which can be shared and can generate hardcopy braille, 
refreshable braille, synthetic speech, large-print, etc., etc. AFB is also 
working on this, and we have very good news. We have an agreement with the 
publishing industry on how to move forward on this, and it includes a new 
law in the U.S. that we think will work for us, and that the publishers 
believe will work for them as well. To learn more go to:

	http://www.tsbvi.edu/textbooks/afb/index.htm
 On Sun, 27 Jan 
2002, Kirk Wood wrote:

> On Sun, 27 Jan 2002, Janina Sajka wrote:
> > Part of the problem is that creating braille or tape versions is generally 
> > a "one-off" done by hand from a printed page. Not very efficient. What 
> > we're trying to eingineer with NISO/DAISY, and with our participation in 
> > the OEBF, is access to the underlying text in a well-marked-up XML (or 
> > SGML). If we can get publishers to:
> > 
> > 1.)	Use good markup;
> > 2.)	Allow us to build a server-based delivery system;
> 
> So is there anything to prevent agencies already doing braille translation
> from the publisher files to put their work out in DAISY format? Having
> helped some with the group that does most of the textbooks for k-12 in
> this area, I can tell how they do it. They get the text book in electronic
> format. They also get two copies of the book in print and correction
> sheets.
> 
> They then have sigted people ensure that any corrections from the sheets
> are marked in the print versions. They translate the braille from the
> electronic version. One of the print books is available to the translator
> to ensure that formatting is correct. The other goes to the proof
> reader. Then the book is embossed.
> 
> Two come to mind here. The first, is that the embossing seems most
> wastefull. While expansive, I feel they should move to refreshable
> braille. This would allow the student to carry the entire text book as
> sigted students do.
> 
> The second thing is that I find it bothersome that the same can't be done
> in other situations. The small group near me translates well over 100
> texts a year. Most of this is done in a matter of 4 months. It astounds
> (and saddens) me that given this ability, more books aren't
> available. I hope that the DAISY format can perhaps speed this up and
> perhaps work toward having most books available to the blind comunity.
> 
> =======
> Kirk Wood
> Cpt.Kirk@1tree.net
> 
> Nowlan's Theory:
>         He who hesitates is not only lost, but several miles from
>         the next freeway exit.
> 
> 
> 
> _______________________________________________
> Speakup mailing list
> Speakup@braille.uwo.ca
> http://speech.braille.uwo.ca/mailman/listinfo/speakup
> 

-- 
	
				Janina Sajka, Director
				Technology Research and Development
				Governmental Relations Group
				American Foundation for the Blind (AFB)

Email: janina@afb.net		Phone: (202) 408-8175

Chair, Accessibility SIG
Open Electronic Book Forum (OEBF)
http://www.openebook.org

Re: What I did on my summer holidays.

[Janina Sajka]

There is a profound difference between recording digitally and the DAISY 
standard. If you only record, from beginning to end, you're functionally 
no different than the analog cassette. Instead, DAISY imposes hierarchical 
structure onto the recording, using the SMIL protocol. That way, you can 
"rewind" and "fast forward" to something meaningful, because it's 
structural, unlike today's media which only "rewind" or "fast forward" 
some number of inches of tape irrespective of the actual intellectual 
contents.
 On Mon, 28 Jan 2002, Geoff Shang wrote:

> Hi:
> 
> Don't know about elsewhere, but I know that some agencies here in Australia
> have been recording their masters digitally for some time now.
> 
> Geoff.
> 
> 
> _______________________________________________
> Speakup mailing list
> Speakup@braille.uwo.ca
> http://speech.braille.uwo.ca/mailman/listinfo/speakup
> 

-- 
	
				Janina Sajka, Director
				Technology Research and Development
				Governmental Relations Group
				American Foundation for the Blind (AFB)

Email: janina@afb.net		Phone: (202) 408-8175

Chair, Accessibility SIG
Open Electronic Book Forum (OEBF)
http://www.openebook.org

Re: What I did on my summer holidays.

[Janina Sajka]

Both, Victor. Just like it's always been. Some old analogs will just get 
Both. There will be re-issues that are as dumb as the original media. And, 
there will be new recordings of old material. This is how it has always 
been.
 On Mon, 28 Jan 2002, Victor Tsaran wrote:

> Hi, Janina!
> DO they plan to rerecord already-existing books from the very scratch or
> they will use existing tapes for new recordings augmented by indexing etc.
> Vic
> 
> ----- Original Message -----
> From: "Janina Sajka" <janina@afb.net>
> To: <speakup@braille.uwo.ca>
> Sent: Monday, January 28, 2002 3:29 AM
> Subject: Re: What I did on my summer holidays.
> 
> 
> > I think Kirk got it about right below. Especially the part about "summer,"
> > because it was certainly unseasonally warm in Toronto last week! <grin>
> >
> > One note about the 15/16 ips, four-track cassettes as specialized media.
> > This format was defined explicitly as a specialized format for blind users
> > of specially produced content. One can think of this format as a kind of
> > analog tape intellectual property protection scheme. We can hope and dream
> > of a day when we don't need such things, but we need them now if we're
> > going to have access to large quantities of published books in a
> > format/medium that really works for us.
> >
> > I should note that many countries are jealous of the U.S.' Chafee
> > Amendement. In most other countries (though not all), organizations
> > producing braille or audio (and soon the DAISY format) need to get
> > permission in writing from copyright holders before they can begin to
> > produce a title. This takes a lot of time, and, of course, producing
> > titles takes a lot of time to. One side benefit of the Chafee Amendment
> > means that titles can be made available much more quickly than before.
> >
> > The goal, of course, is to get as many titles produced in the DAISY format
> > as quickly as possible, and to get them into users' hands as quickly as
> > possible. Another goal is to give users a wide range of choices in the
> > technology they use to "read" this content. There are already some
> > hardware devices that 'play" DAISY titles--and there will be more. There
> > are also software players already--and there will be many more of these,
> > on all the OS used by us.
> >
> > So, I am very glad that Kirk was with us last week. The Digital Talking
> > Book technology is going to be very important to our community, and we
> > need the widest range of experience and viewpoint in getting the basics
> > right so that anyone and everyone who qualifies can participate.
> >
> > PS: If you live in the U.K., you will have the option of titles in DAISY
> > late this spring. Here in the States, we'll have to wait a bit longer.
> >
> >
> > --
> >
> > Janina Sajka, Director
> > Technology Research and Development
> > Governmental Relations Group
> > American Foundation for the Blind (AFB)
> >
> > Email: janina@afb.net Phone: (202) 408-8175
> >
> > Chair, Accessibility SIG
> > Open Electronic Book Forum (OEBF)
> > http://www.openebook.org
> >
> >
> > _______________________________________________
> > Speakup mailing list
> > Speakup@braille.uwo.ca
> > http://speech.braille.uwo.ca/mailman/listinfo/speakup
> >
> >
> 
> 
> 
> _______________________________________________
> Speakup mailing list
> Speakup@braille.uwo.ca
> http://speech.braille.uwo.ca/mailman/listinfo/speakup
> 

-- 
	
				Janina Sajka, Director
				Technology Research and Development
				Governmental Relations Group
				American Foundation for the Blind (AFB)

Email: janina@afb.net		Phone: (202) 408-8175

Chair, Accessibility SIG
Open Electronic Book Forum (OEBF)
http://www.openebook.org

Re: What I did on my summer holidays.

[Kirk Wood]

Perhaps one means of making the files intended for blind people accessible
to only blind people is to leave them in electronic brialle no matter the
end product.  Expect that talking books be able to read braille. And for
those using their computers, the software can do the back translation as
needed, or the individual can back tanslate to standard ascii. I know this
is not perfect, but with work I am sure it can be made better.

=======
Kirk Wood
Cpt.Kirk@1tree.net

Nowlan's Theory:
        He who hesitates is not only lost, but several miles from
        the next freeway exit.

Re: What I did on my summer holidays.

[Victor Tsaran]

Yeah, but can't you take existing material and break it into meaningful
pieces and mark them up? I think this type of job could be performed by
anybody, given some simple procedure. Otherwise, tons of books will have to
be rerecorded in a new DAISY format.
Best,
Victor

----- Original Message -----
From: "Janina Sajka" <janina@afb.net>
To: <speakup@braille.uwo.ca>
Sent: Monday, January 28, 2002 6:53 PM
Subject: Re: What I did on my summer holidays.


> There is a profound difference between recording digitally and the DAISY
> standard. If you only record, from beginning to end, you're functionally
> no different than the analog cassette. Instead, DAISY imposes hierarchical
> structure onto the recording, using the SMIL protocol. That way, you can
> "rewind" and "fast forward" to something meaningful, because it's
> structural, unlike today's media which only "rewind" or "fast forward"
> some number of inches of tape irrespective of the actual intellectual
> contents.
>  On Mon, 28 Jan 2002, Geoff Shang wrote:
>
> > Hi:
> >
> > Don't know about elsewhere, but I know that some agencies here in
Australia
> > have been recording their masters digitally for some time now.
> >
> > Geoff.
> >
> >
> > _______________________________________________
> > Speakup mailing list
> > Speakup@braille.uwo.ca
> > http://speech.braille.uwo.ca/mailman/listinfo/speakup
> >
>
> --
>
> Janina Sajka, Director
> Technology Research and Development
> Governmental Relations Group
> American Foundation for the Blind (AFB)
>
> Email: janina@afb.net Phone: (202) 408-8175
>
> Chair, Accessibility SIG
> Open Electronic Book Forum (OEBF)
> http://www.openebook.org
>
>
> _______________________________________________
> Speakup mailing list
> Speakup@braille.uwo.ca
> http://speech.braille.uwo.ca/mailman/listinfo/speakup
>
>

Re: What I did on my summer holidays.

[Geoff Shang]

On Mon, 28 Jan 2002, Janina Sajka wrote:

> There is a profound difference between recording digitally and the DAISY
> standard. If you only record, from beginning to end, you're functionally
> no different than the analog cassette. Instead, DAISY imposes hierarchical
> structure onto the recording, using the SMIL protocol. That way, you can
> "rewind" and "fast forward" to something meaningful, because it's
> structural, unlike today's media which only "rewind" or "fast forward"
> some number of inches of tape irrespective of the actual intellectual
> contents.

Yeah I realise this, but having it digital to begin with is going to save
you the time needed to import it from analogue.  Not to mention that
quality is likely to be better - if they've invested in digital, chances
are they've invested in some decent recording equipment and environment.

Geoff.

Re: What I did on my summer holidays.

[Janina Sajka]

Can you? Of course you can. Point of fact is the agencies won't be doing 
much of this, because it's a very lot of work--nmuch more work than 
recording from scratch.
 On Mon, 28 Jan 2002, Victor Tsaran wrote:

> Yeah, but can't you take existing material and break it into meaningful
> pieces and mark them up? I think this type of job could be performed by
> anybody, given some simple procedure. Otherwise, tons of books will have to
> be rerecorded in a new DAISY format.
> Best,
> Victor
> 
> ----- Original Message -----
> From: "Janina Sajka" <janina@afb.net>
> To: <speakup@braille.uwo.ca>
> Sent: Monday, January 28, 2002 6:53 PM
> Subject: Re: What I did on my summer holidays.
> 
> 
> > There is a profound difference between recording digitally and the DAISY
> > standard. If you only record, from beginning to end, you're functionally
> > no different than the analog cassette. Instead, DAISY imposes hierarchical
> > structure onto the recording, using the SMIL protocol. That way, you can
> > "rewind" and "fast forward" to something meaningful, because it's
> > structural, unlike today's media which only "rewind" or "fast forward"
> > some number of inches of tape irrespective of the actual intellectual
> > contents.
> >  On Mon, 28 Jan 2002, Geoff Shang wrote:
> >
> > > Hi:
> > >
> > > Don't know about elsewhere, but I know that some agencies here in
> Australia
> > > have been recording their masters digitally for some time now.
> > >
> > > Geoff.
> > >
> > >
> > > _______________________________________________
> > > Speakup mailing list
> > > Speakup@braille.uwo.ca
> > > http://speech.braille.uwo.ca/mailman/listinfo/speakup
> > >
> >
> > --
> >
> > Janina Sajka, Director
> > Technology Research and Development
> > Governmental Relations Group
> > American Foundation for the Blind (AFB)
> >
> > Email: janina@afb.net Phone: (202) 408-8175
> >
> > Chair, Accessibility SIG
> > Open Electronic Book Forum (OEBF)
> > http://www.openebook.org
> >
> >
> > _______________________________________________
> > Speakup mailing list
> > Speakup@braille.uwo.ca
> > http://speech.braille.uwo.ca/mailman/listinfo/speakup
> >
> >
> 
> 
> 
> _______________________________________________
> Speakup mailing list
> Speakup@braille.uwo.ca
> http://speech.braille.uwo.ca/mailman/listinfo/speakup
> 

-- 
	
				Janina Sajka, Director
				Technology Research and Development
				Governmental Relations Group
				American Foundation for the Blind (AFB)

Email: janina@afb.net		Phone: (202) 408-8175

Chair, Accessibility SIG
Open Electronic Book Forum (OEBF)
http://www.openebook.org

Re: What I did on my summer holidays.

[Janina Sajka]

Geoff, you're coming at the same issue that Victor has been asking about, 
just from a different direction. In point of fact, you are both wrong. 
Adding smil data after the fact has proven very time consuming. In the 
case of reissues of old analog recordings, it is even more difficult 
because the original source print books are often unavailable in their 
same editions. Of course, it is possible to conceive that what you're 
thinking of could work, and it will once the speech recognition systems 
become more robust--but that's a diagression, just now.

The proper production sequence is something like the following:

1.)	Markup the text to the DTD, proof and validate;

2.)	Record the audio using live recording tools that also support 
marking as you go. In other words, the marked up text prepared in Step #1 
above is used onscreen (or on refreshable braille display) as the script 
for the narrator. Either the narrator, or the quality control person punch 
a button at every mark point--easy enough at the paragraph level, tedious 
for sentences, and impossible at the word level. For word level, we'll 
need the reco tools;

3.)	Proof and correct;

4.)	Generate distribution media from archive masters and ship;

OK, now about the speech reco. It's different from what is usually meant 
by the term because this time the computer knows in advance exactly what 
phonemes to expect and in what order--because it has the text in advance. 
So, rather than recognizing a word out of the universe of all possible 
words, it need only find the onset and termination of each word in its 
text file.

 On Tue, 
29 Jan 2002, Geoff Shang wrote:

> On Mon, 28 Jan 2002, Janina Sajka wrote:
> 
> > There is a profound difference between recording digitally and the DAISY
> > standard. If you only record, from beginning to end, you're functionally
> > no different than the analog cassette. Instead, DAISY imposes hierarchical
> > structure onto the recording, using the SMIL protocol. That way, you can
> > "rewind" and "fast forward" to something meaningful, because it's
> > structural, unlike today's media which only "rewind" or "fast forward"
> > some number of inches of tape irrespective of the actual intellectual
> > contents.
> 
> Yeah I realise this, but having it digital to begin with is going to save
> you the time needed to import it from analogue.  Not to mention that
> quality is likely to be better - if they've invested in digital, chances
> are they've invested in some decent recording equipment and environment.
> 
> Geoff.
> 
> 
> 
> _______________________________________________
> Speakup mailing list
> Speakup@braille.uwo.ca
> http://speech.braille.uwo.ca/mailman/listinfo/speakup
> 

-- 
	
				Janina Sajka, Director
				Technology Research and Development
				Governmental Relations Group
				American Foundation for the Blind (AFB)

Email: janina@afb.net		Phone: (202) 408-8175

Chair, Accessibility SIG
Open Electronic Book Forum (OEBF)
http://www.openebook.org

Re: What I did on my summer holidays.

[Kirk Wood]

One thing I wonder here is while full implimentation would contain markers
at every level, wouldn't something with fewer markers still prove to be
useful? And as for the books being new editions, that will always be a
barrier. I would think that one could have a single person sitting
punching a button for paragraph, page and chapter marks following along
with a book listening to already recorded audio. Far from perfect, but a
way to convert a huge library with less need for readers of top quality.

=======
Kirk Wood
Cpt.Kirk@1tree.net

Nowlan's Theory:
        He who hesitates is not only lost, but several miles from
        the next freeway exit.