E-books for disabled people in France: A digital librarian’s report

By Alain Patez

Moderator’s note: I’ve long admired the ergonomics and aesthetics of e-book products from France—for example, Mobipocket software (now Amazon-owned) and Cybook hardware (would that Bookeen have been able to drive the price down sufficiently). Now Alaine Patez, a French digital librarian (right) shown helping a visually impaired library user, tells of one my favorite uses of e-books and ergonomics. – David Rothman.

How can you read a paper book if you’re quadriplegic and can’t use your hands? And what if your only way of communicating is through blinking? In other words, suppose you have Locked-in Syndrome.

People with those and other disabilities, including visual impairments, are of special interest to us here at the Landowski multimedia library of Boulogne-Billancourt (Hauts-de-Seine, France) in the western suburbs of Paris.

Since 2001, with our special users in mind, we have been doing fieldwork in the area of digital reading—which led us to set up various loans services for downloadable digital books and electronic reading devices. In partnership with Mobipocket, we created the bibliothèque numérique Landowski (Landowski multimedia library) in February 2003.

A digital library for the disabled

In January of last year, this success led to the creation of a national digital library dedicated to disabled persons, the Bibliothèque numérique pour le Handicap, BnH (Digital Lbrary for Disabled Persons), in partnership with the publishing company Numilog.

The project was introduced and run by the town of Boulogne-Billancourt, which partnered with the Association Française contre les Myopathies, AFM (French Association against Myopathy).

The Digital Library for Disabled Persons meets the needs expressed by national associations for disabled people and institutions providing support for individuals. All the parties involved in this project believe that digital books, as true reading appliances, are the best way to give disabled people access to reading and to culture.

Wireless services ahead

The BnH is a national platform for the legal loan of digital and audio books protected by copyright, with the aim of satisfying its readers’ needs, whatever their disability, geographic location or reading material. The BnH should soon be made accessible through WAP (mobile Internet), which will lead to the direct downloading of files onto communicating mobile devices.

The four-hundred readers of this library have distance access to over a thousand copyright-protected documents in French, published by French publishers: Gallimard, P.O.L., La Découverte, L’Etudiant, etc; there are five copies of each book and ten copies of each audiobook. The documents are available in two text formats: the books are available in PDF and Mobipocket’s PRC; and the audiobooks are available in WMA. Most visually handicapped people are able to read these books, thanks to the use of computer generated sounds, the fact that PDF is compatible with the reading software on the JAWS screens used by the visually handicapped, the enlargement of characters, the automatic scrolling of the text, etc.

Fifty percent fiction, fifty percent nonfiction

Fifty percent of the collection is made up of fiction books and fifty percent of nonfiction books.

Each readers has a user name and a password that enables him or her to download three digital books for a period of twenty-one days. Just as in a classical loan library, the books can be handed in early and reserved when all the copies of a book are in use.

This library uses existing software solutions, and bases itself on the principle of DRM book protection, on the respect of authors and economic models in place, as well as on the follow-up of its readers.

Coming: Study results and new content—including for the disabled

Three studies are being carried out at the moment: one about the benefits of digital edition for the disabled ; another one about the ergonomics of the reading place and reading methods; the last one is about the use of PDAs for persons with motor disability.

We intend to offer new content that has never been offered in this format before, especially audiodescription films for the visually handicapped, or comic strips for young people, the mentally handicapped in particular.

The Digital Library for Disabled Persons was awarded the Action, Innovation, Accessibility prize of the French Ministry of Health and Solidarity in 2006.

Additional moderator’s note: Alain Patez’s title is project manager of the Digital library for the Disabled (Bibliothèque Numérique pour le Handicap, BnH). Please note that we’ve added the Wikipedia hyperlinks. So if anyone dislikes the Wikipedia, blame us, not Alain.