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 > > -- > 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. -- 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.
