DAISY Users and Services in Norway

Mai-Linn Holdt, High School Student, Oslo, Norway
Arne Kyrkjebø , National Library for the Blind, Norway

Kyrkjebø: Ladies and gentlemen. Hiroshi, your pronunciation of “Kyrkjebø” was fantastic. You’re learning. My name is Arne Kyrkjebø and…

Holdt: My name is Mai-Linn.

Kyrkjebø: We are going to hold two presentations together. Mai-Linn is going to give the first presentation. She will speak a little bit in English and a little bit in Norwegian. When she is speaking in Norwegian, I will translate into English. After that, I will have a presentation about DAISY in Norway. Mai-Linn?

Holdt: My name is Mai-Linn. I am 16 years old. I come from Oslo in Norway.

Holdt (interpreted): I’m in my first year in college in service and communication studies. I have dyslexia. I found out that I had dyslexia in my third year in grade school. When I think about grade school, everything was dark and difficult for me. I don’t remember anything apart from the breaks. In sixth grade I got a private teacher and I learned to read and write. By that time, I was 11 years old.
Before I got talking books, my mom and dad used to read for me. I am entitled to get talking books because of my dyslexia. I was given talking books in the fifth grade but not in every subject. I used talking books when I did my homework but I don’t remember much about it. In my first year of high school, things changed for the better. More opportunities came along and people began to expect more from me. I was given talking books but they were DAISY copies. They did not work properly. The same thing happened the next year.

Then my parents started a process to make sure that I got proper DAISY books. I did not feel like using them because I had lost my self-esteem. Then I was forced to make use of the talking books and, as time went by, I started to use them because I wanted to. You probably remember that I didn’t like using the DAISY books at first but I enjoy it now. I depend on the DAISY books. If it wasn’t for the DAISY books, I wouldn’t have as high a grade as I do in any subject. I worry that I won’t get DAISY talking books when I start higher education.
How I use the DAISY talking books is with a PC with the AMIS reading program, sometimes with earplugs. I keep the paper copy of the book in front of me while listening to DAISY. We’re going to show a short film showing the study sequence. The sound quality in the film is not very good. Actually, there is no sound at all but it shows how Mai-Linn is using the book. One moment, please.

[Sounds in background, ]

Kyrkjebø: We are now showing a film where Mai-Linn is sitting in front of her computer. She has the AMIS program and the book in front of her. It’s an audio-only talking book. She has the paper book in front of her so she can read the text while listening to the audio. Actually, Mai-Linn has made her own full textbook.

[Whispering in background]

Holdt (interpreted): It is easy to loose your self-confidence when you don’t get what you are entitled to like a PC, extra tuition, talking books, et cetera. I have good friends who respect me and my dyslexia. I have also done different sports, something which has made me gain more self-confidence. The talking books have given me more self-confidence and have helped me to achieve grades that are good enough.

Holdt: Thank you!

Chair: Stay here a little bit. I’d like to get some questions, OK?

Chair (interpreted): If you have any questions, please raise your hand. There will be another presentation but if you have any questions for Mai-Linn, please feel free to do so. Yes? Please wait for the microphone.

Hamada (interpreted): Mai-Linn, thank you very much for your presentation. My name is Hamada from the DAISY Association. I want to ask a question for Mai-Linn. At first when you received the multimedia DAISY you said you didn’t like using it. What didn’t you like about using multimedia DAISY? When we offer DAISY to users, sometimes people say they don’t want to use it, especially high school students, people around that age. There are students who say they don’t want to use DAISY. If you can, give us some suggestions as to how we can improve DAISY so that students will like it.

Holdt (interpreted): Now she has given me the answer. The most important thing was the technical part, that the books were not very good technically. The DAISY player we used at that time wasn’t good, so it was technical issues, actually. It wasn’t DAISY technology. It was how it was produced or not using the DAISY technology. The other thing is something that I will mention in the next speech. She got copies of the book, kind of illegally copied the books. The school did that. I’ll explain later on why. Sometimes the copy was bad, so it was a technical reason. It wasn’t the DAISY functionality.

Holdt (interpreted): When she got proper DAISY books was when she enjoyed using DAISY and started to get addicted to it. It’s important that the books are technically correct and valid. The other thing is that full textbooks will make it easier. When you have the text and the audio files together you don’t have to have the paper version in addition to the talking book, as you saw in the film.

Chair (interpreted): Thank you very much. Are there any other questions? No more? All right. Then we’d like to proceed to the next presentation. Arne, would you like to start the next presentation?

Kyrkjebø: I’m going to give a brief description of the DAISY services in Norway. I’m going to talk about the DAISY service for the whole school system and also the additional service that the schools are providing to the pupils or students that are in need of it. I didn’t hear the translators. I’m not sure what you said but I think you introduced me. I’m the head of production at the Norwegian Library of Talking Books and Braille in Norway.
This is the juridical information. In Norwegian copyright law the reading disabled have access to adapted material, so there are no differences between what the reading disabled and the blind can get in Norway. They can have leisure reading books, textbooks, et cetera. There is no difference in the copyright law. The education law says that the students or the pupils have a right to an adapted training situation. The law doesn’t say that you are entitled to have books in the DAISY format or in other formats. It only says that you have a right to an adapted training situation. I’m going to talk a little bit about that later on.

The governmental social service in Norway supplies citizens with disabilities adapted technology and equipment. That means, for instance, learners who are blind get DAISY players from the government. Actually, they don’t get it. They kind of borrow it but they can keep it as long as they want to. This also includes other kinds of equipment for dyslexic students. That normally means that they get computers and/or other equipment, which I will also be mentioning later on. They are entitled to get the necessary technology from the government. This seems very nice. It’s not always.
Since I’m going to talk the whole Norwegian school system, I’ll give just a brief description of the Norwegian school system. I’m guessing it’s not very different from other countries. Grade school is from 6 to 11 years. Junior high is from 12 to 15 years. High school is from 16 to 19 years. That’s where Mai-Linn is going now. She’s in the first year of high school. College and university are from 19 for as long as you want.
I’m going talk about the DAISY providers. There are mainly two different suppliers. One is NLB. I will talk a little bit about us later on. We are supplying leisure books and university materials. The material for the lower grades (that means grade school, junior high and high school) is supplied by a national governmental provider called “Huseby Kompetansesenter.” That’s “Huseby Resource Center.” They are producing and providing DAISY material.

As I said in the beginning, you are not entitled to get the books. You are entitled to have a learning situation at the school that is adapted but not necessarily books. They are producing books. The goal is to cover the 3rd to 12th grade, so not the first two years at school but their goal is to cover the others. I have tried to indicate the legal difference between the visually impaired and reading disabled. It’s not very easy to see the difference. Some of the reasons why they different are because both Huseby and NLB used to be services for the blind. The reading disabled have kind of come into the same service. The visually impaired have a legal right to adapted materials in all topics, so actually they can phone Huseby and say, “I’m blind. I need that book.” Huseby is supposed to produce that book in Braille, e-text or DAISY, depending on what you want.
The reading disabled have a production right. That means that Huseby can produce DAISY books even if there are not any blind people requiring that book. They can produce it for dyslexics. That doesn’t mean that a dyslexic pupil can call and say, “I need that book.” Well, they can call but they won’t necessarily get it. That’s the difference between the visually impaired and the reading disabled.
I asked them how they prioritize. Of course, this is a resource question. It’s not a rights or needs question. They are prioritizing titles or series with substantial market share, which means they go to the commercial markets and they see which books are top sellers for the school system. If it has a big share of the market, they produce it because they know that a lot of schools are using that book and therefore a lot of visually impaired or reading disabled also need that book. They are prioritizing subjects containing a substantial amount of reading. Some topics require that you read a lot. Those topics are more important than, for instance, gym. “Series” means that if they start with a math book for 7th grade they also produce it in 8th and 9th. That’s because when the school starts to use one book, they use that book further on in the system. Then there are requests and topics with few available accessible books. If they see that there are few books in an area, they produce that.

Actually, they are quite reasonable reasons. How many of the books coming into the Norwegian market they produce is a very difficult question to answer because there are new books coming every year. It could actually be the front page that is the only difference in the book. Especially the last 10 or 15 years, we have had some big reforms in the Norwegian school system. The reforms always mean that all of the books have to be produced all over again. Actually, in Norway now we are in the middle of a reform. That means that all of the books have to be produced again. Today the percentage that is available is very low but in 5 or 6 years it will be better, until the next reform comes.
Huseby produces the material. It is the school’s materials. Each school that initiates and diagnoses the pupils appreciates their needs. The school is responsible (as I said earlier) to find out which students or pupils should have a book. The schools are also responsible for ordering the book on behalf of the pupil. The pupil is not ordering the book. The school is doing that. That also means that the school guarantees that the pupil is entitled to have the book. That means that they have according to the copyright law the necessity for it.
There’s a fee of $20 US dollars per book per pupil. That means that they have to order that book for that pupil and no other is supposed to use it. We don’t have any ## in Norway. When Mai-Linn mentioned this copying, that’s the reason. The school is copying it. The reason why there’s a fee is governmental income. There’s no logical reason besides earning money on it. Actually, there are investigations in Norway showing that that little fee is enough that the schools are not ordering books. It’s a small amount but for schools in Norway that are normally quite poor, it’s a lot of money. They want to buy pencils instead of that.

The books from Huseby today are audio NCC only. That means only audio books, not full-text books. After hearing the presentation before lunch from Japan and Mai-Linn’s presentation, it’s certain that full text is very, very important to produce. I know that Huseby is working on producing full text books but it is a question of resources. It’s technically possible to do it but it’s still quite expensive, so we have to find solutions to make it cheaper.
These are some statistics from Huseby Kompetansesenter. I have some statistics showing how many schools are ordering books today. At the grade and junior high school levels in 2006-2007 it was 1,455 schools that were using the services. In 2008-2009 it was 1,775 schools using the service. That is 54.3% of all the schools that have done this ordering. It doesn’t say if it’s one or 50 pupils but they know of the service and have used it. At high schools it was 235 schools in 2006-2007 and 327 in 2008-2009. We see that it is increasing. If we had the numbers for the year before, you’d see that it’s not something special about this year. It’s a trend.
There are 1,429 available titles from Huseby today. That’s 180 more than the year before. There are 9,797 users. That’s 400 more than the year before. That means that 1.5% of the total potential group (that means pupils) has used it. In that number, if one pupil ordered more books I think they have corrected for that. 1.5% of the total user group has used the services from Huseby. I have mentioned the potential group. That’s a very difficult number to find out. They indicate 3% to 5% should take advantage of DAISY books but it’s very difficult. It could be higher but we don’t know. What I know is that there are definitely many more both schools and pupils that could use the service.

I said at the beginning that the local school is responsible for making an accessible situation for the pupils. There are no national standards. There are mostly local initiatives that are doing this. It’s not quite correct because you have resource centers which have a recommendation. We have the Dyslexic Union in Norway proposing how the schools should take care of these questions but there are no national requirements saying this is how we should do it.
Success factors include whether it is a rich or poor local community, the economy locally. Is it a rich community or poor community? It’s very, very important not only for ordering DAISY books but the kind of computer situation at the school, if they can buy equipment, if they have technical people at the school and those kinds of questions. That’s also the next one, technology skills at the school. That’s a very important point, to have the people who are there to introduce the technology at the school. Of course, resource persons are also a factor. That could be technology persons but also people that have knowledge about adaptive technology and reading problems that actually can provide help to other teachers. I mentioned and I also have here the success factor of parents. I think that is very important. I think you have seen that today. The parents are very important in all areas as a driving force to make sure that the pupil gets the things that they are entitled to get or to make it so that they get it.

This is a picture showing all the factors, all of the places that could work for the pupil. We have the pupil in the middle. We have the family. We have the social welfare system giving the remedies. We have the resource centers. Pupils can go to these resource centers and get diagnosed or they can get help (like training help or reading help). They are actually doing a very, very good job in Norway of doing this. We have the local community that owns the school. There we have the resource personnel or the teachers that are working for the pupil, so it’s a kind of summary of what I said before. I don’t think that I will mention this. Moving on to university, that’s me. That’s NLB. We are providing the textbooks for the universities and colleges. We also have a difference between the visually impaired and reading disabled. The reason why is because NLB was traditionally a library for the blind. We have in our rules that we can give resources to the reading disabled as long as it doesn’t threaten the blind users. There is no political reason. We are not forbidden from doing it but there is a resource question.
The vision impaired have a production right. That means that they can send their lists to us and we find out if it exists in our catalogs or other catalogs. We are cooperating with other countries. If we have the material, they get it. If not, we produce it. That’s for the visually impaired. That’s the production right. For the reading disabled, they have the right to borrow the existing textbooks. If we have it, they get it for free (everything is for free at NLB) but they don’t have the production rights.
We only supply textbooks normally, not articles and compendiums and so on. Most of our production is DAISY. 50% is audio done by a narrator. 50% is done by synthetic speech. That is full text. Last year we produced about 550 textbooks. 50% of them were full text. We are starting to get a lot of textbooks. We are producing some e-texts and some Braille, but that’s not much. That means that the local service also at the university is very important because, as I said, it’s the school that is responsible for an adapted learning situation. The college by law has to do it. We are only supplying a service. The students are not entitled to have DAISY books but they get them from us.

We had a very good presentation about student services yesterday. It’s the same. I can’t say that it is just as good but we have the same service at every college and university in Norway. It’s very, very different. A big Norwegian university has about 20,000 students and a small one could be 500 or 600 students. They have a student service and the student service is one person. He or she has to do 20 other things, as well. It is similar but the level of service is very different. They are diagnosing. They are advising, giving information. It could be, for instance, be information about contacting NLB and you can get some of the books there. They are also supplying hardware and software themselves or through the Norwegian social system. Also in the last 2 years they have started to produce themselves. Some of the production is pure scanning and pure text files. They have TTS or other tools on their computers. They have also started to produce DAISY material.
A lot of things are happening in Norway now. That is the last slide on planned improvement. We (that means the DAISY Consortium and NLB, as well) are working on finding more efficient ways of producing DAISY books. Some of the tools (Pipeline, for instance, or Pipe Online, which we are implementing) are very important tools to make the production line efficient. “Efficient” means that it is fast to produce, which is important, and cheaper to produce, which means that we can produce more material for the same amount of money. That’s very, very important.
We have also started to use external producers to produce it. We are also working very Nordically. The Nordic countries are cooperating in exchanging books and production files. Yesterday it was mentioned that in Sweden 30% of the student materials are in English. It’s the same in Norway. That means that 30% of our production I guess is already produced at RFBND, so we are producing it again. International cooperation in exchanging files could be a very efficient way to increase the amount of our books. The Nordic countries have started cooperation. We will exchange books from this year and we will exchange the production files so we don’t produce the same files but we can lend it to each other or get it from each other.

We are making a centralized web-based production tool that all universities shall have access to called “Pipe Online.” This is a solution that will be available this February, this month. That means that the schools can upload the files and by automated production methods they can produce the DAISY book and download it. We are supplying the equipment and the solution and they do the production themselves. We hope that that can be a way of producing a lot of the materials that we don’t produce today in a better way.
There are also a lot of initiatives producing locally accessible material. There are a lot of solutions now. I’m not going to mention all of them but there are a lot of opportunities now to produce DAISY material locally, cheaply and quite well. I think the best thing to say is to read the DAISY webpages, which says everything about it. That’s it.

Chair (interpreted): Thank you. Are there any questions?

Akashi (interpreted): My name is Akashi. I’d like one clarification. On school technology, what did you mean by “local production”? Where was it: grade school and other schools, the school technology? I think you are talking about local production.

Kyrkjebø: That was the question? “Local production” means that the universities will produce on the campus with their own tools. They are producing DAISY materials based on tools that they have. There are a lot of tools. Some have been mentioned earlier today. There are a lot of tools both from the DAISY Consortium and from commercial suppliers like TTS that make it possible to produce your material in DAISY format yourself. Was that the question? Yes? OK.

Chair (interpreted): Mai-Linn, could you come up on stage once again? Can you give a message to the people of your generation, to the young people in Japan with dyslexia, please? Give a message to the young Japanese people with dyslexia.

Mai-Linn (interpreted): Here is some advice I want to give to DAISY users. Get good helpers that can supply you with advice, equipment and solutions. Make sure that you get good self-confidence. Find places where you can be good at something that gives you a good feeling in other areas, as well. Use DAISY and everything will go so much better.