iPads may be great for a number of forms of reading, but it is turning out they also make great assistive devices for the disabled. The Unofficial Apple Weblog has a story about Owen Cain, a boy with a degenerative disease who is finding the iPad is improving his life considerably. Thanks to the iPad and both specialized and general-purpose applications, Cain can read books while barely able to move his fingers. Furthermore, the multi-purpose iPad is considerably less expensive than a lot of single-purpose assistive medical devices, which can cost between $2,000 and $6,000. Not only does the...

The World Intellectual Property Organization (WIPO) closed its latest copyright meeting with a two-year work plan to improve access to the print disabled and to identify potential library exceptions in international treaty agreements. The Standing Committee on Copyright and Related Rights (SCCR) will devote several days of discussion at meetings in June and November 2011. This development suggests that WIPO is committed to address the rights of users of information in addition to its long-established emphasis on strengthening copyright and enforcement measures. A commitment to a legal instrument to improve access for the print disabled could come as soon...

From the UN News Centre: In an unprecedented United Nations-supported initiative, people who cannot see and those who have other forms of visual disability will have access to published works through publisher intermediaries who will create accessible formats of publications and share them with specialized libraries. The new arrangement was announced today at the of the UN World Intellectual Property Organization (WIPO) meeting in the Indian capital, New Delhi. It is estimated that only five percent of the world's one million print titles that are published every year are accessible to the some 340 million around the world who are blind, visually...

From the press release: CourseSmart, the world’s largest eTextbook provider, Alternative Media Access Center (AMAC), and AccessText Network (ATN) announced that their collaboration in providing lower-cost eTextbook rentals to postsecondary students with disabilities has received a grant from the U.S. Department of Education for $1.1 Million. Over the next two years, the funding will be used to support STudent E-rent Pilot Project (STEPP), an innovative, eTextbook rental program aimed to help improve low-cost access to higher education eTextbooks for all students, including those with print-related disabilities such as blindness or dyslexia. AMAC is an initiative of the University System of...

From The Bookseller: The Publishers Association, The Society of Authors, The Association of Authors Agents and The Right to Read Alliance have released a joint 'recommendation to publishers' to encourage the use of the text-to-speak function on digital devices. The option is sometimes disabled in order to protect the rights of the audio-book publisher. The PA said the recommendation would go some way to offering people with print disabilities the same rights to access e-readers as those without disabilities, and should provide a more equal footing as sales of these devices take off in the UK. The joint statement "recommends that text...

Yesterday I had the opportunity to speak with Ken Petri, the Director of the Web Accessibility Center at The Ohio State University, about the accessibility of eBooks and eBook readers.  Ken is incredibly knowledgeable on the topic and offered a great deal of information during the interview.  It’s about 25 minutes in length, so I strongly encourage you to download the file before listening due to it’s size.  Ken provided us with a great list of resources for various aspects of eBook accessibility, which are below.  Thanks Ken! NSR offers monthly interviews with librarians, publishers,...

Received the following email from Rhoda. Can anyone help? As editor of Tele-Read, maybe you can help us with a technology request. My friend’s grandson is bright, loves to read, but doesn’t speak and lacks the fine motor skill to turn pages on his iPad book reader. Is there any software or device that could turn the pages for him? Could you also ask if they know of an input device, do they know how a non-technical person would hook the input device to the iPad or computer? ...

This is a post from Austin Seraphin's Behind the Curtain blog from back in June. It's well worth reading the whole thing: Last Wednesday, my life changed forever. I got an iPhone. I consider it the greatest thing to happen to the blind for a very long time, possibly ever. It offers unparalleled access to properly made applications, and changed my life in twenty-four hours. The iPhone only has one thing holding it back: iTunes. Nevertheless, I have fallen in love. ... I have seen a lot of technology for the blind, and I can safely say that the iPhone represents...

An important article from the Library Journal for anyone interested in people with disabilities. Here's a snippet: If digital literacy is exploding, the visually disabled are taking the shrapnel. I would wager that most librarians consider ourselves committed to accessibility and make individual and organizational efforts to comply with (and often exceed) the Americans with Disabilities Act (ADA) in our buildings and the Rehabilitation Act Section 508 standards on our websites. We may not, however, have had the sobering experience of trying to access an ebook or e-journal using screen-reading software or other assistive technology. Despite our best intentions,...

From the Tools of Change blog comes important information for those with disabilities: For years we've supplied our digital files to Bookshare, a non-profit that provides accessible reading material to the print disabled. For qualifying readers, our books are made available worldwide, and we've really enjoyed working with Jim Fruchterman and the Bookshare team along the way (I'm also on their Advisory Board).   Although the DRM-free EPUB files in our ebook bundles are compatible with many reading systems for print disabled customers, many readers prefer the DAISY format that Bookshare provides, and either don't qualify...

TechEye has an article by TeleRead contributor Dan Bloom about this new development from Taiwanese doctoral student Yu-shuan Peng. He developed Android software to let blind people use a cellphone camera to take flat images and transmit the image, via bluetooth, to a tactile board that will allow the image to take on a three-dimensional form so that blind users can feel it. "It's like what people do when they can tell what a mahjong tile is without looking at it, just by stroking it with their thumbs," Peng says, using the example of a popular parlour game in Taiwan. The...

Eric Taub reviews Danny the Dragon Meets Jimmy on the NY Times website today. He says: that brings to it what the publisher, iStoryTime, says is a first: an iPad book complete with sign language for deaf children. The $3 app offers three versions of this charmingly illustrated work: one that children can read themselves, one that would be read to them and one signed by a woman who stands off to the side of the screen, with the reduced-size book running next to her. The signed version is actually a QuickTime movie, which can be paused by the user. The woman...