Digital collection for blind and visually impaired people (DLB) Boris Badurina, Martina Dragija Ivanović, Dunja-Maria Gabriel, Koraljka Golub, Nikolaj Lazić, Robert Ravnić

Blind and visually impaired before... Before: –slow and expensive process of production of materials for the blind: Braille books audio books large print –  few accessible materials, which as well contain outdated information

...and today: advances of technology and networking relatively low-price technologies enable the blind to use the Internet just like the sighted high technology devices for the blind and visually impaired (speech synthesisers (external speech units), speech synthesiser software (e.g. Eloquence, Tess), screen reading software (e.g. Jaws), screen magnification software, audio playback equipment, Braille displays )

Blind and visually impaired in Croatia 5500 blind in Croatia who are registered with the Croatian Association of the Blind Croatian Library for the Blind (the only one) –materials: Braille books, audio books and large print (majority is literature) –one blind person, a member of the Library, reads on the average 17 books a year (while one sighted person in general reads 1,5) –1406 members (May 2001) (only blind and visually impaired)

Digital collection for the blind the purpose of the collection: providing information and help for the blind by using the Internet and modern communication technologies collecting e-books and e-magazines edited in a way most accessible for the blind –should be copyright-free for the blind –the site conforms to the W3C guidelines –accent on higher education textbooks

Copyright problems no regulation on legal deposit in digital or audio format (which would be the only possible way for the blind to use an item) for a small and restricted group of users exception to the copyright law is not defined authors’ disinterest in co-operation (not responding to s) Croatian Copyright Agency is expensive

Web Content Accessibility Guidelines 1.0 explain how to make Web content accessible to people with disabilities four major guidelines: Design content that allows presentation according to the user’s needs and preferences Design content that allows interaction according to the user’s needs and preferences Design for ease of comprehension Design for compatibility and interoperability (Web Content Accessibility Guidelines 2.0 Draft)

Techniques for Web Content Accessibility Guidelines 1.0 (2000) ( applied in the DLB design ) –Guideline 1. Provide equivalent alternatives to auditory and visual content –Guideline 2. Don’t rely on colour alone –Guideline 3. Use markup and style sheets and do so properly –Guideline 12. Provide context and orientation information –Guideline 13. Provide clear navigation mechanisms –Guideline 14. Ensure that documents are clear and simple

Accessibility evaluation tools perform a static analysis of pages or sites regarding their accessibility, and return a report or a rating -applied in DCB are: -a) W3C HTML validation service -checks sites for compliance with W3C HTML Recommendations and other HTML standards –b) Bobby ( -determines if a site is accessible -analyses Web pages for compatibility with various browsers

Creating the DLB selection criteria: 1) the Croatian language, literary and popular-science documents that already exist in the digital format and are copyright-free; 2) exam literature as a whole (no language, format and copyright criteria) acquisition: asking publishers and authors for their publications (by and by regular mail) to the purpose of the DLB building processing: digitisation (when on paper), HTML formatting, classifying, and incorporating DC metadata

Processing materials in the collection based on subject indexing optimised in order to achieve quicker and more efficient retrieval of the Web and the DLB created metadata describe characteristics of an electronic resource and present elements necessary for identification and description of a document (author, title, subject, http address etc.)

Problems with metadata there is a variety of digital formats that are nowadays used, and: –aren’t interoperable –do not allow the implementation of metadata directly into its core – e.g. PDF because it would break copyright regulations biggest problem with metadata: non- existence of “see” & “see also” references, which are essential to the user for finding units using alternative or non-standard forms

DLB now includes... full-text e-books in Croatian that are copyright- free mailing lists for the blind (4), a list of institutions and faculties (9), various information sources (links to selected web services), collections of digital texts (links to selected world web sites of virtual libraries), a list of electronic magazines and newspapers, a list of literature and textbooks, a list of associations –links are briefly described and sorted by subject –90 serial publications in 36 groups (by subject) magazines for the blind –10 associations

...DLB now includes web addresses of several large libraries with digital texts free of charge (USA - Gutenberg, Austria - University of Linz, Canada - CNIB Library in Toronto, UK - RNIB Library) links for creating digital collections for the blind: – guidelines for forming the web-site content – validation tools 52 titles, mainly Croatian classics in literature

Five phases of the project 1st phase –creating the Web site for the collection in conformance to the W3C guidelines –putting texts that already exist in digital form and that are copyright-free –cooperation with the Croatian Association of the Blind and Croatian Library for the Blind (all phases) –regulating copyright with authors, publishers, and the Croatian Copyright Agency

2nd phase suggest the site to various Web search engines (Yahoo, Google, etc.) creating metadata and internal search engine adapted for the blind developing authorisation system for copyright protected documents developing copyright regulation system including software that checks whether the links listed on the site are still «alive» adjusting the existing digital collection of exam literature for librarianship to conform to the W3C guidelines

3rd phase including obligatory exam literature at the Department of Information Science, Faculty of Philosophy building digital audio collection for the blind (Bulaja Publishing) workshops on using the collection evaluation: within chat and request parts of the site & through workshops (in 4th phase as well)

4th & 5th phases 4th phase –including non-obligatory exam literature at the Department of Information Science –expanding digital audio collection –workshops on using the collection 5th phase –including exam literature of other Departments at the Faculty of Philosophy –expanding digital audio collection –evaluation: online survey