Multimedia Library Accessible to Blind People

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Multimedia Library Accessible to Blind People

• Institute of Informatics
• Silesian University of Technology
• Gliwice, Poland

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Agenda

• unlimited access to publications
• our library system
• conclusions

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Current status

• 1-3 of printed publications available in
  accessible format
• high preparation cost of Braille and talking
  books
• low edition - hundreds to thousands copies
• delay of several months

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Computers with assistive technology for visually
impaired users

• unlimited access to information
• screen magnifiers
• screen readers
• talking applications
• Optical Character Recognition

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Assistive software in Poland

• ZoomText
• Lunar
• JAWS
• WindowEyes
• HAL
• FineReader
• OmniPage

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Online access to libraries

• searching
• browsing
• ordering

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Accessibility gt Success
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Library management systems in Poland

• VTLS
• WAIS
• Horizon
• Aleph
• Prolib

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Accessibility issues

• difficult navigation
• graphical links without description
• untitled frames
• inconsistent labels for form elements

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Individual scanning of books

• scanned books contain OCR errors
• multiple scanning of the same book
• it takes many hours

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Printed documents

• created using computers
• relatively easy to prepare in accessible format

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Accessibility of eBooks to disabled readers

• printed and eBook versions of books published
  simultaneously
• means
• dedicated eBook readers
• software (personal computers, palm-sized PDAs)

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Digital Rights Management

• used in software e-book reading systems
• copy-protection prevents screen readers access
• blind people cannot read eBooks

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Accessible eBook readers

• Microsoft Reader
• Adobe Acrobat eBook Reader
• both use SAPI speech synthesizers

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Our library management system

• Silesian University of Technology
• Laski School for the Blind, Poland

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Multimedia publications in library

• eBooks
• eMagazines
• digital talking books
• audio files
• movies

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Library server

• Linux environment
• PostgreSQL database
• Apache web server
• PHP scripting language

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Library user interface

• accessible to visually impaired people
• easy navigation
• customizable
• W3C WAI web content accessibility guidelines
• tested with ZoomText, Jaws and WindowEyes

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Content of web pages

• HTML
• no Java
• no JavaScript

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Groups of users

• regular Internet users
• registered readers
• librarians
• shippers
• administrators

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Registered readers

• searching in the catalog
• browsing publications details
• borrowing books
• suggesting new publications
• viewing a list of borrowed books

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Borrowing books

• downloading as ZIP archive
• browsing publications online
• ordering publications on CD-ROM

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Languages

• Polish
• English
• German
• Russian

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Librarians

• preparing new publications
• management of readers accounts
• verifying CD-ROM requests

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Multimedia workstation for preparing publications

• scanner
• OCR software
• CD-RW/DVD recorder
• software for creating multimedia publications
• assistive software to verify the accessibility of
  publications

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Preparing accessible publications is difficult

• various data formats
• missing or inappropriate structural elements
• time consuming
• proposal of standard metadata format - OEBPS

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Transferring publication to server

• as a ZIP file
• using WWW form

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Shippers

• burning CD-ROM images
• sending packages by post

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Administrators

• changing users privileges
• editing lists of publishers and formats

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Installations in Poland

• Laski School for the Blind - from June 2002
• planned University of Warsaw
• planned Central Library for the Blind

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Development

• efficient transmission of large multimedia files
• new module to support preparing publications by
  volunteers
• special tool to exchange new publications among
  libraries

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About the research project

• http//rose.ii.ps.edu.pl/library.html