Books for the visually impaired
This article provides a briefing and links to explore the issues to help make
books available to those whose eyesight is deteriorating.
Anybody who does not require glasses for reading by the age of 40 is a freak.
A bit shocking perhaps but it makes the point that eyesight degrades with age
for absolutely everybody. The little muscles and membranes in the eye are truly
remarkable but they do wear out. Anybody who could design a modern material as
durable as the components of the human eye would make a fortune.
So reading and seeing is a problem that everybody will have to deal with. The
only question is the age and the severity. A few are blind from birth but a much
larger group are not blind but have problems reading text. The ability to read
was not, after all, a factor driving our evolution.
There are about 2 million people in UK with sight problems. According to RNIB,
‘another 100 people will start to loose their sight’ each day within the UK.
Figures from the American Foundation for the Blind, (ABF) ‘approximately 1.3
million Americans are legally blind’ of which 55,200 are children and a further
‘5.5 million are visually impaired’. The Blind people’s Association of India
estimate that there are over a billion people on the sub-continent are
blind because of cataracts.
Demographics makes it likely that the problems people have reading are going
to increase in spite of medical advances. It is important that publishers
address the issue both on the grounds of social exclusion but increasingly for
good market motives. In the UK 96 per cent of the books published cannot be
accessed by those with sight loss or dyslexia. By 2030 the number of people with
sight loss will have doubled, and eight out of ten people say that they would
want to continue reading if their sight deteriorated.
(This final paragraph uses the
special font which might not be available on your computer)
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Larger print is defined as 16 point and over. Evidence shows that many people
actually prefer reading a larger print, whether or not they have problems with
their sight.
Clear print
guidelines are ‘12 or 14 point text in a medium or bold weight, and ensuring a
strong contrast between text and its background’.
Braille
is a tactile method of reading that has many international
dialects.
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Some definitions
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A font has been tested and found to combine the best characteristics for
those with visual impairments. This font is called TIRESEUS. Printers are not
very keen on it because it uses so much ink, which means they can’t run the
presses quite so fast and it needs quality paper to stop the image leaking
through to the reverse. From Bitstream.
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The
See it right guidelines provide some rules for web designers |
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DAISY:(Digital Accessible Information System)
The first DAISY standard was proprietary, originating in Sweden in 1994. The
idea was to use digital recording and introduce some document structuring that
would allow easy navigation by the user. In 1997, the DAISY Consortium decided
to adopt open standards based on file formats being developed for the Internet.
"Daisy", based on an open e-book standard, allows text and both human and
synthetic voice recordings to be indexed at several levels, permitting
searching, browsing, book-marking and retrieval - particularly useful for
reference books.
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The international 'Right to Read Alliance'
includes 20 organisations campaigning to increase
the number of books available to people with sight problems, dyslexia or print
reading disabilities.
As a part of the campaign a "trusted intermediary" scheme has been developed.
The Publishers Association, Publishers Licensing Society and some publishers are
making their digital content available in secure conditions for conversion to an
XML file. XML is a development of HTML used by the web. It uses "tags" to
identify the type of data. These files are held by the "trusted intermediary"
and used to produce accessible format books in large print for sale to
bookshops, libraries, schools or individuals.
E-books
For a growing minority of people accessible e-books are particularly useful.
Access technology (computer software) can convert accessible text into audio or
Braille on the screen.
Links
On-line digital Resources
One alternative to reading is audiobooks. If you have a computer and access to
an MP3 player, you might be able to download books, some for free, onto a
portable audio player, or onto your computer.
Librivox - this is a public website, where members of the
public record books which are in the public domain for anyone to download for
free.
Audiobooks for free:
http://www.audiobooksforfree.com/
Audioville:
https://www.audioville.co.uk/
Audible:
http://www.audible.co.uk/
ODEO: http://www.odeo.com/
