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Funding and governance of library and information services for visually impaired people: international case studies

Part2:Country studies

Japan

What is driving change?

Increasing demand (ageing population) plus decreasing funding is promoting use of volunteers and outsourcing of services to the private sector in order to reduce costs.

Technology - Japan has been at the forefront in the development of DAISY; the Japanese Association of Libraries for the Blind was one of the initial members of the DAISY consortium in 1996. The Japanese government provided funding for a world field trial to identify the functional requirements of print disabled people in order to inform the creation of the DAISY standards.