Jes, this is why I laugh at the laws, which are already on the books. As amazing as it seems, the laws contain provisions to protect authors and publishers of content and the laws that provide access to this content for those with disabilities also contain provisions to protect said individuals. However, with all that said, publishers, universities, etc. make little effort to ensure equal access. Now there are universities that make a considerable amount of effort and even publishers who make considerable effort to create equality in this regard, but yet so many do not. What to do? I wish I had the answer, but alas the issue is much bigger than me. :) On Feb 1, 2010, at 8:25 AM, Jess wrote:
> 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 > > -- > You received this message because you are subscribed to the Google Groups > "MacVisionaries" group. > To post to this group, send email to macvisionar...@googlegroups.com. > To unsubscribe from this group, send email to > macvisionaries+unsubscr...@googlegroups.com. > For more options, visit this group at > http://groups.google.com/group/macvisionaries?hl=en. > -- You received this message because you are subscribed to the Google Groups "MacVisionaries" group. To post to this group, send email to macvisionar...@googlegroups.com. To unsubscribe from this group, send email to macvisionaries+unsubscr...@googlegroups.com. For more options, visit this group at http://groups.google.com/group/macvisionaries?hl=en.
