THE SETTING UP AND MANAGEMENT OF A DIGITAL LIBRARY IN SRI LANKA
Anthony Bernard
Chairman of The DAISY Lanka Foundation
1. Preamble
Hitherto Braille has been the primary medium in which information has been available to the blind community. Even though Braille is, and will continue to be, an essential medium of note taking and communication on a personal basis, it is not a very efficient information medium. Braille is expensive and time consuming to produce, bulky, and is usable only by those who are Braille literate. The number of people who are print disabled in Sri Lanka far exceeds Braille users. They include not only the blind and visually impaired, but also other categories of disabled persons such as illiterates, dyslexics, mentally retarded, paraplegics and quadriplegics. Braille as an information medium has other demerits. Braille is expensive to produce and bulky to store. Above all, the production of Braille cannot keep pace with the information explosion of the twenty-first century. Braille production cannot provide the requirements of knowledge, expertise and proficiency in the academic and vocational spheres. Briefly stated, Braille cannot guarantee the full social, economic, intellectual, vocational and cultural integration of the print disabled.
Long-playing Vinyl disks, reel tapes and cassette tapes are not the best of substitutes. They depreciate after a while and with constant use. Their sound quality also deteriorates in time. The greatest disadvantage of these media is their deficiency in navigability.
2. Introduction of DAISY to Sri Lanka
In March 2003 A group of blind and sighted persons, from various universities and organizations of and for the blind and interested individuals attended a two-day seminar on DAISY recording and playback hardware and software conducted by Mr. Hiroshi Kawamura, founder and Chairman of the Japanese Society for the rehabilitation of persons with Physical Disabilities at the Advanced Digital Media Technology Centre (ADMTC) at the University Of Colombo School of Computing (UCSC) Watching and listening to Mr. Kawamura's demonstrations convinced us that DAISY is the solution to the problem of providing information in the quality, quantity and format required by persons with print disability for complete assimilation into society.
Later in the year the secretary and chairman of the DAISY Lanka foundation had the privilege of participating in DAISY production colloquia in Thailand and India respectively. In August 2004 focal point training was held in Sri Lanka by courtesy of the JSRPD and the DAISY-FOR-ALL Project. While the computers and other hardware and software for the training were provided by the DAISY consortium, the seminar was staffed by experts from Japan and India. The members of the DLF attended other training courses in Thailand under the auspices of the Asia Pacific Centre for the physically disabled in Bangkok. The computers and other paraphernalia used at the workshop are now deployed in six DAISYH production centres.
In January and March 2005, a follow-up local training course was conducted by the secretary and chairman of the DLF to assist the participants in the August 2004 to consolidate their knowledge and skills gained then.
3. Setting up of the DAISY Lanka Foundation (DLF)
Meanwhile, the DAISY Lanka Foundation was setup in May 2004 to produce and distribute books in DAISY format. The objectives of the DLF include the following:
- To work toward the achievement and attainment of full economic, educational, cultural, vocational and social inclusion and integration of people with print disabilities by the provision of information in alternative accessible formats.
- To function as an associate member of the international DAISY Consortium, and as focal point to facilitate the implementation of DAISY standards in Sri Lanka and to act as the primary contact point between organizations in Sri Lanka and the DAISY consortium.
- To produce and disseminate print information in Digital format in the languages of Sri Lanka.
- To arrange library exchange programmes between producers and distributors of materials in accessible formats within and outside Sri Lanka.
- To train producers OF DAISY books in the use of hardware and software production techniques AND To train clients in the use of hardware and software DAISY playback tools.
- To establish, maintain and develop Digital Talking Book library services in various parts of the country and To Function as a repository of books and other material published in DAISY FORMAT by diverse organisations and to supervise and coordinate the work of information providers in DAISY FORMAT in various parts of the country.
- To encourage the government, government corporations, statutory bodies and private book publishers to publish books in the DAISY format.
- To encourage individuals and organizations to participate in open source software development targeted towards DAISY production and reading tools in the local languages.
4. Setting up the Digital Library
Once production of books and other material in DAISY FORMAT GOT UNDER WAY, THE ESTABLISHMENT OF A DIGITAL LIBRARY FOLLOWED AS A NATURAL COROLLARY. Up to now about seventy-five books have been produced in the local languages. Most of these are in audio only format. In October this year another seminar will be held by courtesy of the DAISY-For-All project in order to impart advanced training to those engaged in DAISY production in the methods of producing books in audio-visual synchronised format.
In order to provide full access to the DAISY material, the DLF has enlisted the Sri Lanka Association of Blind Graduates as our consortium partners. They will provide us with the necessary outreach services. The DLF will concentrate on functioning as the depositing agent.
Besides producing digital books by recording them on CDs the DLF is also involved in developing a dedicated website to provide information to a wide section of the print disabled community. The website will include links to the major organisations of and for the blind and other disability agencies in the world. It will also be a means to provide distance education to disabled people of school going age and adults. It is also to publish articles of general interest on this website.
5. Difficulties and Constraints
The poor economic background of most blind persons makes the computer a less viable medium than the ubiquitous battery/mains operated cassette recorder. Therefore, at least for the time being, there should be parallel production of talking books in both digital and analog formats. The digital recording could serve as the master copy from which both digital and analog copies may be made, for those requiring books in either format. Additionally Marked texts could be used to produce Braille material for those who require information in this format.
There is a problem in finding volunteer readers. Young people desire permanent employment with a view to eventual settling down, while retired officials generally take up full-time or part-time work in private establishments or non-governmental organizations. Consequently the recruitment of paid readers and editors is something that has is considered as a solution to this problem.
Until reliable TTS, OCR and screen-reading software for Sinhala and Tamil are developed and Unicode or other web-browser compatible character sets for these languages are implemented, it will not be possible to produce local language DTBs consisting of synchronized text and audio. Therefore, at least for the time being, DTB production in the local languages will have to be confined to the TOC plus audio only variety. In the case of Tamil, it may be possible to benefit from work done in India; but for Sinhala, the language of %74 Sri Lankan, there is urgent need of research and development.
I wish to record my thanks for the Korean Braille Library for affording me the opportunity to attend this workshop. My thanks go especially to Miss Youk the directress and Miss Sally for their kind assistance and cooperation.