 |
 |
| |
 |
||
|
|
|
|
Digital Talking Books Aid the Uncommon Reader• Kathleen Cahill Until recently, people who can't read books in print form had a great deal of difficulty locating books to read. Some users, especially those who are blind, visually impaired, or learning disabled, turned to books on tape. But for several reasons, books recorded onto cassette tape can be unwieldy to use. Depending on the number of cassettes, portability can be an issue. Audio quality can be marred by tape hiss. Users cannot bookmark, search, or index important points, nor skim or take notes within the book. Instead, listeners spend a lot of time rewinding and fast forwarding. Blind and visually impaired people also have access to some books in electronic format that can be opened as a computer file (such as a Word or text file). The electronic version of the book can be read aloud by screen reader software, which converts text into synthesized speech. But the unnaturalness of a synthesized voice does not work for every reader. Also, many books are not available in electronic format. The DAISY Standard People with different types of print disabilities need different types of access to a book. The DAISY standard allows for different renderings of a book in audio format (human voice) as well as text. The audio and text versions of the book are marked up and synchronized so that users can search, navigate, and skim the book as a sighted user might. Some versions of the format also make it possible for a book to be generated in Braille. Digital Talking Books (DTBs) are now available on CD through some talking book libraries. To listen to these books, you need a DTB player. Many of these devices look like CD players and can also play MP3 files and audio CDs. Recordings for the Blind and Dyslexic (RFB&D) uses an encrypted form of the DAISY standard called Audio Books Plus. Users of Audio Books Plus must have a DAISY player for this particular format. RFBD has about 15,000 Audio Books Plus in its collection of 105,000 books. The next proposed DAISY standard (DAISY 3) will be based on Extended Markup Language (XML) and Synchronized Multimedia Integration Language (SMIL) rather than XHTML. This version will add more features to enhance the reading experience. For example, users with learning disabilities will be able to look at a text version of a book on the computer screen while listening to audio playback of the text to enhance their comprehension.
|
