Hello Jess, Some e-books are accessible for us. Kobo has an accessible reader for the iPhone and sells current books. If Kobo can do it, so can the others.
>From looking on the Kobo website, I get the impression they request permission >from the author before publishing the book in an accessible form. Others could >do the same, and we would then know which authors to avoid, criticise, >ridicule or whatever. Cheers, Anne On Feb 1, 2010, at 7:45 PM, Jess wrote: > 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. > -- You received this message because you are subscribed to the Google Groups "MacVisionaries" group. 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