1. Digital collection for blind and visually impaired people (DLB) http://www.ffzg.hr/infoz/dzs/dzs.htm
Boris Badurina, Martina Dragija Ivanović, Dunja-Maria Gabriel, Koraljka Golub, Nikolaj Lazić, Robert Ravnić

2. Blind and visually impaired 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 few accessible materials, which as well contain outdated information

3. ...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 )

4. 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)

5. 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

6. 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

7. 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)

8. Techniques for Web Content Accessibility Guidelines 1
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

9. 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

10. 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

11. 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.)

12. 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 <Portable Document Format> 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

13. 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

14. ...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

15. 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

16. 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

17. 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)

18. 4th & 5th phases 4th phase 5th 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
evaluation: online survey