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

Part2:Country studies

The Netherlands

Preferred Situation

Description

The ideal system would be that in which the majority of the information is directly accessible from the content provider and a lot less information has to be made available through organisations like ours. All this information should follow the main stream delivery systems as much as possible.

Funding

Financial support should (continue to) come from National Government (Ministry of Culture and Education) with additional funding from private foundations, EC subsidy and fund raising.

Who would deliver

Using main stream delivery as much as possible, so publisher, bookshop and public library would deliver material to clients, with special delivery services for immobile clients.

How would organisations work together

The public library sector and the libraries for the blind will form one entity from the first of January 2007, providing the front office service to the end user with a special front office for those users who find it hard to go to a library themselves. Production is provided by Dedicon. The front office for educational materials stays at Dedicon where experts provide the information students need for their study. A further and more intense international cooperation between libraries and production centres will improve the availability of information and technological development

A joint effort would be required to provide adequate funding and to organise this ideal situation with all related partners.