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Funding and governance of library and information services for visually impaired people: international case studies
Part2:Country studies
Croatia
Special projects
The Croatian Library for the Blind, in co-operation with the Croatian Association of the Blind, has started a project to create a digital archive of master copies (new, as well as converting old ones from tapes into digital format): Digital collection for blind and visually impaired people (DLB) [http://www.ffzg.hr/infoz/lida/lida2001/present/golub.ppt].
The aim of the project is to collect the full texts of books and magazines in the Croatian language as well as other information sources for the use of visually impaired people in the most accessible way. The collection is being created in accordance with the recommendations of World Wide Web Consortium (www.w3c.org), which gives a wide range of guidelines for the access to the web for the persons with special needs. The purpose of the collection is to provide information and help for visually impaired people by using the internet and modern communication technologies. Collected books should be copyright-free for the blind. There is a special emphasis on higher education textbooks.
Selection criteria for DLB:
- )The Croatian language, literary and popular-science documents that already exist in the digital format and are copyright-free;
- )Examination literature as a whole (no language, format and copyright criteria)
Acquisition is done by asking publishers and authors for their publications (by e-mail and by regular mail) to help build the DLB.
Processing: digitisation (when on paper), HTML formatting, classifying, and incorporating DC metadata.
DLB now includes:
- full-text e-books in Croatian that are copyright-free
- 52 titles, mainly Croatian classics in literature
- collections of digital texts (links to selected world web sites of virtual libraries)
- magazines for the blind
- a list of electronic magazines and newspapers, a list of literature and textbooks, a list of associations
- links are briefly described and sorted by subject
- 90 serial publications in 36 groups (by subject)
- mailing lists for the blind (4),
- a list of institutions and faculties (9),
- various information sources (links to selected web services),
- 10 associations
- web addresses of several large libraries with digital texts free of charge (USA ? Gutenberg, Austria ? University of Linz, Canada ? CNIB Library in Toronto, UK ? RNIB Library)
- links for creating digital collections for the blind:
- guidelines for forming the web-site content
- validation tools