CafeScribe

The DAISY or ANSI/NISO Z39.86 digital format was developed to assist the blind and dyslexic populations in reading textbooks. A lot of thought was put into its development over the last 60 years.

These people have tried to give the blind and dyslexic the same options as the sighted have in reading a paper bound book. Some things they have already worked out:

• ability to flip through the pages of a book


• ability to jump from one chapter to another backwards and forwards through the book


• ability to jump from one heading to the next backwards and forwards through the book; the chapter beginning is accessed each time the chapter changes


• books can have 6 or 7 levels of structure (older books only have 4 levels)


• text-to-speech software can read the text to the person

Of course, one can look up words or phrases in a dictionary or Wikipedia. Their note taking system also includes the ability to use either a text or audio note.

It seems from what I read that many people getting into creating digital textbooks are not using what has already been done by DAISY.

Wikipedia says:
"A subset of the DAISY format has been adopted by law in the United States as the National Instructional Material Accessibility Standard, and K-12 textbooks and instructional materials are now required to be provided to students with disabilities."

So it seems logical to me that people in the business of making digital textbooks available should follow the standard for accessibility even in college textbooks. What have you done in this area?