One for my noob friends

Students, unless you want the skinny behind how alternate format text production actually works, y'alls can just skip this one. This post is in answer to a question I got from a friend at another university; she's just jumping in to this whole world of alt text production and needed a bit of an orientation. Not being one to waste a good long email, I've published it here for others. I had a ton of help from the disability services community when I was getting started in this stuff, so I look at questions like this (and I do get them more often than you'd think!) as a way of paying it forward.

My friend is looking for resources outside of her own campus, as right now she doesn't have the ability to establish her own production center. Her question was specifically about audio formats. These conditions influence the information I've put together here.

Eligibility & Copyright

For many of the sources I'm going to mention, there's an eligibility determination that needs to be made by your disability office and communicated to the source. The four criteria that are almost universally applied are:

1. Student has documented print disability. Some sources will restrict to vision impairment, learning disability, or physical disability.
   
2. Student has registered for class, and class requires the book requested. (In the case of graduate school, can potentially include every book in the known universe!)
3. Student, or someone on behalf of the student, has purchased a copy of the book. (Can be used, though the publishers won't tell you that.) Does not apply with RFB&D or Bookshare.
4. Student needs to sign usage agreement that informs them of legal issues related to copyright. Some sources will have their own. I use our own as well: SOU's usage agreement.

Formats

Audio is actually a category rather than a single thing. There are several ways to provide it, and I use a combination of them depending on the needs of the student and the availability of different formats.

• DAISY: The gold standard. DAISY files are actually generally a combination of xml (html with a specialized markup) and mp3 files. Audio-only DAISY (like RFB&D produces) is like an mp3 with navigation. Text-based DAISY (like Bookshare produces) uses text-to-speech from the computer and has on-screen text to follow along with. Both "flavors" have amazing navigation: you can go to a specific chapter, page, or heading; speed it up or slow it down; bookmark; skip.
• MP3: Generally will be text-to-speech synthesized by a computer, unless you're purchasing an audiobook (which is a performance rather than just audio access) from iTunes, Audible, or one of the other audiobook vendors. This is the one students are most comfortable with because it's familiar, though it's actually the least helpful in terms of accommodation because it's not very navigable or manipulable.
• Electronic text with text-to-speech: There are a huge number of text-to-speech applications out there that can read most electronic documents. For home use, I generally point my students to free and inexpensive options, though we also discuss some of the more fully-featured options as well. Many schools use this as the way they provide alternate format text because it's the most flexible for the student, costs less than DAISY to produce, and is far more manipulable than mp3 files.

E-textbooks

Be careful.Many of the e-textbook formats out there use digital rights management or formatting in ways that make the textbook completely inaccessible for students who use assistive technology (like text-to-speech software) to read. FlatWorld Knowledge does have accessible books: their online reading option is accessible with assistive technology and they offer audio as an option for all of their books. In addition, they're partnering with Bookshare, so Bookshare should have the FlatWorld catalog available this fall.

Bottom line: ask about the accessibility of e-texts before purchase. By "accessibility", I mean "access for people who use assistive technology to read", not "can students get to it on the web." Even if the answer is no, you at least know where you stand and your students won't receive an ugly surprise. Plus, the more customers who ask, the more the textbook industry realizes that this is an issue an the more likely they are to do something about it.

Sources

• RFB&D: Recordings for the Blind & Dyslexic has been around a long time, and they are very good at what they do. There are free individual memberships for postsecondary students. Specific books can be requested for production, but these require long lead times. Formats provided: audio-only DAISY in downloadable or CD versions, which require specialized software or hardware to play; WMA files for Windows Media Player and some mp3 player devices. Human voice readings (an essential if using Shakespeare, Beowulf, and the like). Membership required; disability must be certified by clinician or disability office at university.
• Bookshare.org: Newer on the block, Bookshare has a growing library. They also have free individual memberships for postsecondary students. Specific books can be requested for production, but require long lead times.Formats provided: plain text (for public domain books), full text DAISY files, and brf (Braille ready format - can be embossed directly to Braille or read on a refreshable Braille device). Bookshare provides free software to read DAISY files. Membership required; disability must be certified by clinician or disability office at university.
• National Library Service: Run by the Library of Congress and most state libraries, the NLS makes books available to eligible patrons. Their registration process is entirely individual, so I haven't worked with them other than to refer students to them. Formats available: Braille, DAISY.
• AccessText Network: This is a cooperative group of the largest publishers to make requesting electronic copies of textbooks for conversion to accessible formats faster and easier for disability offices. No direct student connection. However, if you're going to outsource production, requesting files from AccessText will make the production faster, cheaper, and more accurate than scanning files. The membership agreement is full of legalese - may want to run it through legal counsel. Someone from your institution will need to go through the training, etc. to start using it. It's free right now, but they're going to start charging $500 a year this summer. Given the time and resource savings over scanning, it's worth it.
• Alternate Text Production Center: This is the production center for the California Community Colleges. They will produce books in Braille or e-text for other schools using a fee-for-service model.
• Badger Accessibility Services: Fee-for-service based out of the University of Wisconsin-Madison. They're fast and extremely accurate.
  
• Digilife Media: Conversion service with a pretty good reputation.
  
• Read How You Want: Bookstore for Braille and DAISY titles. Catalog is fairly small.
• Librivox: Human-read audio versions of books in the public domain. They have fantastic readers, and it's all free.
• OpenLibrary: Has a huge number of DAISY books and is adding them all the time.
• The standard audiobook places: iTunes, Audible.com, Audiobooks.com, etc.

Text to Speech Applications

I'm actually going to point you back to other posts in my blog for this category. There's a number of posts there that can be helpful. Basically, text to speech applications read text from the screen through a computer synthesized voice. The built-in voices in the Windows operating system are pretty awful (though Anna, which comes with Windows 7, is a definite step up), but there are many out there for purchase that work much much better.

Wow, you made it to the end! Hope this is helpful.