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

Part I: Summary Report

The provision of materials

Creation and conversion of reading materials

Providers were asked about how they obtained the original materials; who performs the conversions and into which formats; whether titles are converted for stock, on-demand or both; and what targets exist.

Providers purchase, borrow or receive donations of print and e-text for conversion. Many have in-house staff for conversion to Braille, but some outsource this activity to contractors (NLS in the USA, TPB in Sweden). A few use volunteers (Canada CNIB, Japan). For audio cassettes and audio DAISY, the use of volunteers for narration is more common.

As well as the acquisition of original printed texts and electronic files to convert, libraries will also acquire alternative formats produced elsewhere such as master DAISY files or audio files produced by other libraries e.g. in other countries or by other alternative format providers, commercial large print publishers or digital audio files from publishers (these are then converted to DAISY), as well as resources such as tactile children's books from specialist providers.

The most usual formats produced are Braille, audio cassette and audio DAISY. Both Dedicon in the Netherlands and TPB in Sweden no longer produce audio cassettes or standard audio CDs, and the NLS in the USA will phase out cassettes in the next 5 years. CNIB also has ceased production of audio cassettes for the collection, having gone totally digital.

In many cases, special libraries don't supply large print materials, which are sourced direct by public libraries e.g. Sweden, USA.

The issue of whether materials are produced for stock or on-demand does not divide along any obvious lines, but it clearly has major implications in terms of making any comparisons between the amount of output in different countries and also in judging user satisfaction levels: an efficient on-demand service could - in theory - satisfy 100% of demand with the production of a low percentage of material being converted to an accessible format.

This would still not be an equitable situation, however. One reason is that there is not an equal provision of the means of discovering the universe of reading material from which choices can be made. A sighted reader can browse physical or online bookshops and libraries; in future this could be easier for a visually impaired person, but for the moment, this gap remains. Users may get everything they demand (though that is a distant goal in many cases) but they don't necessarily know what they might want to demand.

Stock only

NLS

Dedicon (fiction)

DBB

Mainly for stock

Blindlib

Korean Braille Library

CNIB

On-demand only

Dedicon (study materials)

Mix of stock and on-demand

TPB (60% on-demand)

Vision Australia (study materials for higher education all on-demand)

CNIB (15% on-demand)

Korean Braille Library (40% on-demand)

Targets for production levels

Most respondents did not have any formal production targets. Only TPB in Sweden had an annual target expressed as a percentage of total book production in the country.

TPB: 25% of Swedish book production annually must be produced as talking books (presently 3250 per year) as per a government decision

DBB: yearly quota decided by DBB.

Criteria for selection

Where the titles are selected for stock, there is clearly an issue about the basis for selection. Many of the special libraries said that that most or all titles for stock were chosen by teams of librarians or selection committees of librarians, sometimes with guidelines, but based on their knowledge and expertise in terms of what the customers want. Where public libraries make independent selections of stock e.g. of large-print books, this is in accordance with local collection strategies and constraints.

NLB in the UK referred specifically to input from users. Vision Australia referred to projected client requests as well as client suggestions and known preferences in terms of genre; and award winners, Australian content and popular authors. CNIB said that 75% of titles were selected on the basis of reviews or the fact that they had won awards; 5% was reserved for completing series or replacing missing titles and 5% for titles of specific interest to those with vision loss because of characters or subject matter. 15% are on-demand.

On-demand production forms part or all of the activity undertaken by some of the libraries: Dedicon in the Netherlands produces all its study materials on-demand, as each student requires particular resources for their education. Sweden's TPB produces 60% of Braille copies on demand and part of its audio Daisy output. In Japan, libraries for visually impaired people produce 40% of titles on-demand. By contrast, NLS in the USA does not produce anything on-demand, using its resources to provide multiple copies of material it selects.

On-demand production is likely to become much more important in future; in principle it is much more efficient to hold digital files of all titles and convert only what is demanded, but it depends on close co-operation with publishers and speedy conversion processes. It also demands different budgetary disciplines to ensure that money does not run out part of the way through the year.

Number of titles produced annually/ total collection

It is interesting to make some comparisons of the number of titles converted in a year and the total collections, where we have this data. It shows, perhaps surprisingly, that in a very large country such as the USA, the central provider (and there are others) produced last year fewer audio titles than are produced in much smaller countries such as the Netherlands and Sweden (though there are differences in the scope of what NLS provides e.g. study materials are provided by RFB&D). This reflects a policy decision by the NLS to create more copies of fewer titles, and these mass duplicated titles are distributed to all the regional libraries to be stored for distribution to the end-user. On average, about 900 copies of each title are made, with the maximum being around 2,000 and the minimum about 400. This illustrates how the delivery model affects the decisions about production and reproduction. NLS has undertaken research and consultation about whether this model is applicable to digital talking books or if it should be modified to a part or fully on-demand duplication.

Canada.

CNIB: CNIB produces 600 DAISY titles from scratch each year but adds 2000 titles per year, the remainder being recorded elsewhere but going through a production process at CNIB; Braille 320 titles

Croatia.

Croatian Library for the Blind - total collection 2,087 Braille books, 2,092 audio books, 6,296 large print books

Denmark.

DBB

The current collection of audio books consists of approximately 12,000 analogue titles and 14,000 digital audio titles (DAISY).

The current collection of Braille books consists of approximately 4,200 titles. Braille books have been distributed on a print on demand basis since 2002.

Japan.

Libraries for visually impaired people have 495,327 Braille titles, 481,148 titles in cassette form and 267,090 DAISY book titles in stock.

Public libraries have 180,617 talking book titles in cassette form, 10,367 DAISY titles and 99,827 Braille titles, and other resources in terms of commercial audiobooks and cassettes, tactile books and handmade large print books.

Korea.

Korean Braille Library 3,000 Braille books per year, 1,200 DAISY titles. Total Braille collection in all libraries 110,000

Netherlands.

Dedicon: 3,500 audio books produced annually; Total talking book collection 115,000. Fiction talking books production: 1,200 titles; Braille fiction production: 450 titles per year.

Another smaller producing organisation, CBB, produces 500 talking books and Braille magazines.

Sweden.

TPB (2006)

Production of new talking book (DAISY) titles: 5,629

Older analogue titles transferred to DAISY: 8875

Total acquisition of talking books: 13,021

Total talking books stock: approx. 40,000 titles

Braille acquisition in 2006: 454 titles

Total Braille stock: 12,912 titles

UK.

RNIB - 13,000 talking book titles in the collection (Nov. 2006); added 450 in 2005

Calibre Audio Library - 7,000 titles, added 269 in 2005

NLB - At March 2006 NLB had 42,000 titles in stock (mainly Braille) and typically adds 1000 titles p.a.

(NLB and RNIB have now merged, as from 1 January 2007).

USA.

NLS FY2005 3,925 audio and Braille book titles (of which around 2,000 audio); 45 recorded and 33 Braille magazine titles. Total collection 360,000+

RFB&D (recorded textbooks for school and university students): 5,134 produced; 109,106 in the collection.

Copyright exceptions

As the World Blind Union has stated:

"As accessible formats are, in copyright terms, copies, in the absence of any exception or limitation to copyright legislation, producers of accessible formats require the express permission of the rights holder. The need for permission can create delays and impose administrative burdens on individuals or on agencies serving such disabled people. Rights holders can also sometimes refuse permission because they fail to understand the reasons for which it is being sought."

Two main aspects of copyright law have restricted the ways in which libraries can respond to the needs of visually-impaired and other print-impaired people. One is the extent of barriers to make copies to produce accessible formats without express permission. The other is cross-border exchange of accessible format materials.

There are exceptions of various degrees of latitude in different countries to allow the production of alternate format materials. A comprehensive WIPO study of exceptions and limitations to copyright for the benefit of visually impaired people has recently been published (after the research for this report was completed) http://www.wipo.int/meetings/en/doc_details.jsp?doc_id=75696.

One of the key differences between countries is the extent to which the exceptions cover print-impaired as well as visually-impaired people. This is something that publishers sometimes find difficult in terms of the perceived problem of controlling the leakage of copies from a tightly-defined segment into the general population.

Changes in the EU occurred as a result of the Information Society Directive of 2001. Countries in the EU have implemented the Directive in slightly different ways. Distinctions are made in terms of who can make and distribute sound recordings compared with other formats such as Braille, and there are varying provisions on remuneration. The workings of the Directive have been the subject of some recent studies by the Commission as part of a review. These studies are available online http://ec.europa.eu/internal_market/copyright/studies/studies_en.htm. Part 2 of the study on the implementation of the Directive contains details of all the provisions made in the member states for people with disabilities http://ec.europa.eu/internal_market/copyright/docs/studies/infosoc-studyannex_en.pdf.

Most European countries (including Sweden, Denmark and the Netherlands) have amended their copyright laws in ways which do not make a distinction between visually-impaired and print-impaired people in terms of the right to make copies in formats which allow them to enjoy the works. The exception in terms of this study is the UK, where in some respects the situation has worsened for print-impaired people since the Copyright Act was amended; while permissions are no longer required to make copies in accessible formats (where no commercially available version exists) to serve visually impaired people, permissions are still needed to make such copies for print-impaired people. This means that if libraries continued to serve print-impaired people as well, they would have to continue to seek permissions, negating the benefits of the act. The act also permits the levying of charges.

Lobbying of the official Gowers Review on Intellectual Property commissioned by the UK Treasury and published in December 2006, produced a recommendation on removing DRM barriers to accessibility in electronic files, but not the sought-for extension of exceptions to cover print disabilities.

The situation in Canada is similar to that in most European countries in that the copyright law exception permits the production of alternate format materials for the use of people who have both visual and perceptual disabilities. It does not cover large print or non-commercial narrative of cinematographical works.

In Australia, revision of the law is under review by the attorney general and libraries hope for improvements which will ease the burden of seeking permissions. They say that publishers are often reluctant to provide electronic files for use by people with print disabilities.

In the USA an exception for blind and visually-impaired people was introduced in 1996, but it does not apply to print-impaired people.

The situation in Croatia is very difficult as no exception exists and a contract with the rights owner is necessary in all cases. Authors are often difficult to contact or uncooperative and the Copyright Agency is expensive.

In South Africa too, Blindlib has to ask permission to create copies in audio or Braille for each work individually. Blindlib is lobbying for a change in the law, on the basis that the current law unconstitutionally discriminates on disability grounds, to create an exemption which would cover both visually-impaired and printimpaired people.

Japan has an exception covering the creation of Braille materials by anyone and the creation of recordings by special libraries for visually-impaired people and schools for the blind. There are no exceptions for print-impaired people.

Korea's exception is similar to Japan's.

The WBU would like to see a number of general principles observed in countries' exceptions, including:

• A functional, not medical, criterion for who would benefit from the exception, so as to cover all who have difficulty with conventional print
• The exception(s) should not be explicit as to formats; technology is changing too quickly and also adaptations to mainstream formats would probably be excluded
• The exception(s) should not be limited to specified types of organisation, as technology is making the creation of accessible formats much more widely feasible
• Though authors and publishers should be remunerated, if the additional cost of creating accessible copies is left to be borne by specialist organisations or disabled individuals, remuneration may not be justified.

It is clear that the exceptions in place do not generally embody all of these principles and in some cases, none of them.

Cross-border use

Organisations providing accessible formats would like to be able to exchange material across borders. The World Blind Union's position is that:

"It should also be possible for accessible material created under an exception in one jurisdiction to be imported for the benefit of blind or partially sighted people in another. This requires provision to be built into national legislation, at least amongst countries which have comparable exceptions."

This view was certainly echoed by a number of our respondents. Though access to other countries' output is probably most useful for English-speaking countries, there is also output in English and demand for English language materials in other countries where English is widely spoken, including northern Europe, India and some African countries.

Involvement of publishers

There is a very mixed picture in terms of how closely commercial publishers are involved in the provision of materials. This covers both the direct creation of alternate format materials by publishers for this segment of the market, and arrangements for publishers who only produce for mainstream readers to provide digital files to alternate format producers.

Most commercial publishers do not see this as a lucrative market segment to address, either in terms of large print editions or unabridged audio. Having said that, there are specialist publishers involved in supplying large print to special and public libraries, for educational users and sometimes (where the market is large enough to sustain such activity, for example, the USA) to consumers.

The supply of large-print is potentially changing radically as a result of digitisation and the falling cost of print-on-demand, which makes short runs much more economically viable and so can increase range and responsiveness to individual demand.

Unabridged audiobooks have in the past been produced in limited ranges for the general commercial market, where they also satisfy demand from visually and print impaired people; however as well as a limited range, they were very expensive. This too is an area subject to change due to technology, with the increasing mainstream publisher interest in selling audiobooks for use on personal music players such as the iPod. However, this may never replace the need for structured talking books in e.g. for study purposes.

The provision of digital files is an area where a number of projects are either in regular operation or in pilot phases.

Sweden - TPB: Since 2002, 50% of Braille books have been made from files supplied by publishers (sold or free); DAISY 3.0 books will also be produced from publishers' files.

Denmark - DBB: Publishers' digital files are readily available from major publishers, except reference works such as dictionaries and encyclopaedias which require encryption; smaller publishers are more difficult to persuade that there will be no misuse. There is an agreement with the publishers' association which is renegotiated every 2 years.

USA: The American Printing House for the Blind now has a repository, NIMAC, for electronic copies of textbooks published in the US. Publishers validate files prior to submission using a tool provided by the repository. This is intended to improve the timely delivery of textbooks to students compared with the system of creating alternative format copies either by the state Instructional Materials Centers or by other organisations or volunteers on a piecemeal basis.

Pilots and trials

Canada: the Pilot Project for an Electronic Clearinghouse for Alternative Format Production established a mechanism for publishers to make requested files available for alternative format producers who are trusted partners of the project. This was successful in that most publishers were willing to provide the files, though problems remain in ensuring that the files are properly structured. The functionality of the clearinghouse is being maintained by Libraries and Archives Canada (the national library), pending long term funding. It is likely that it will form part of the new model being proposed for the organisation of services in Canada.

UK: A pilot repository is planned following a report with recommendations, which will be finalised in March and presented at the London Book Fair. According to the RNIB, which is leading the initiative, most of the barriers to the concept of delivering accessible materials through the supply of digital files have been addressed, but the issue of what the costs to publishers will be remains to be answered by conversion trials which are underway.

USA: A beta version of a site called the Publisher Look-Up Service was launched by higher education members of the Association of American Publishers last year, which allows disabled student services staff at colleges and universities to look up contacts in publishers so as to obtain electronic copies or other permissions for educational materials. It is part of the wider Alternative Formats Solutions Initiative, aimed at identifying ways to provide course materials in a timely way.

South Africa: there is agreement from the Publishers' Association of South Africa (PASA) to treat Blindlib as a trusted environment for digital files.

A bottom-up view

A bottom-up view The survey attempted to construct a slightly different view of the services by asking how a reader would gain access to a variety of materials e.g. works of fiction, newspapers, magazines, children's books, reference works, school textbooks, academic works and scientific journals.

In and of themselves, this perspective does not necessarily tell us much about range and depth, but the answers reveal a number of differences and similarities, not always predictable. They also give some indications of how complex or simple it is for a user to navigate the system. There is too much detail to include here on that subject (see case studies), but it is possible to draw out some overall issues.

• New works of fiction - predictably this is usually difficult, with delays of up to a year, but some countries such as South Africa and the Netherlands do attempt to get the most popular titles converted speedily, and Japan estimates around 2 months for bestsellers
• School textbooks - the situation ranges from very good (Denmark, Netherlands) to highly variable, depending on local factors (UK) to very bad (South Africa). Several agencies send out books in parts so students can get started and to even out the workload over the year
• Scientific journals - in spite of the wide availability of e-journals, this is an area where there is evidently a lot of difficulty. Most e-journals are said to be inaccessible, though in Sweden and Australia university libraries would take pdfs and convert them for a student
• Magazines - this is generally an area where agencies feel they provide very little, though many Swedish publishers do produce accessible versions to which readers can subscribe and DAISY versions of magazines are increasingly available in Japan
• Newspapers - a brighter picture in a few cases, partly because some countries now produce fully structured electronic versions of daily newspapers which can be delivered to clients overnight, partly because of the existence of well-established talking newspaper services and newer e-mail services.
• Audio is generally much more available than either large print or Braille - not surprising in that surveys show that audio is the preferred format, with most people who have late-onset vision loss finding it difficult to learn Braille, for example
• Users in tertiary education typically have to be extremely well organised and plan ahead to gain access to even the essential course materials to avoid falling behind sighted classmates (and sometimes if staff don't provide reading lists in time, they cannot).
• Reference and academic materials for users outside the education system are very problematic; there seems to be little provision for specialised non-fiction outside the education setting
• Denmark has a special service for employed visually impaired people to provide work-related material

Information on the proportion of materials available in alternative formats

Overall accessibility of materials in relation to the total available to sighted readers is predictably very low in most cases, though a number of respondents weren't able to put numbers on this. There are some important caveats to be made when using these as straightforward comparative measures of how well the systems are performing in different countries (see below).

Books: Typically from less than 5% to 10% is available in any alternative format. Sweden, Croatia and the Netherlands reported around 10%.

Research in the UK in 2005 estimated that only 4.4% of the print output of UK publishers becomes available in an accessible/ alternative format.

In the USA, the NLS estimates about 3.5% of titles each year.

Newspapers: The Netherlands reported 60-80% and Sweden 75%. CNIB in Canada produces more than 40 newspapers, which are available by phone and online, out of 100 paid-for daily titles. The Talking Newspaper Association in the UK says it produces all the daily and weekly newspapers and offers a range of possible access methods besides CD and cassette, including email and online.

Many others indicated that far less was available and South Africa reported that it was minimal.

The most positive development in newspaper provision has come about not so much because of online availability per se, as many online newspapers are not really accessible or easily navigable to those with vision loss, but because of the conversion of production in many countries to structured XML files, which allow trusted intermediaries to produce versions for visually impaired people.

These can be delivered at the same time or earlier than the conventionally printed version. For example, the Netherlands has over 200 electronically readable newspapers and magazines in XML.

Magazines: The highest availability reported was 10-20% in the Netherlands and 50% in Sweden. Most reported very low availability.

Educational materials: It is impossible to overstate the importance of proper provision of educational materials for anyone who is studying and cannot read conventional print. It is also the case that in several countries covered in this report there is no clear responsibility for providing these materials and consequently provision is poor.

A study by Loughborough University (LISU) in 2005 for RNIB of school textbook availability in the UK found a complex picture of availability, with English literature texts having the highest availability at up to 80%, but mathematics and science more in the range of 15-20%. Generic texts are more available than those specific to particular exam boards. Research for the RNIB in 2006 suggested a worse picture, with only 12 per cent of mathematics and 8 per cent of science GCSE textbooks in England being available in Braille or large print. The research also found that not one of the dictionaries or atlases most widely used by 14 to 16- year-olds is available in a format that a blind or partially sighted child could read.

Australia said most textbooks were available.

Dedicon in the Netherlands reported that around a quarter of what educational publishers put on the market is available. However, they produce solely on demand, so in theory, all user needs are met. They placed two caveats on that: firstly, only 5,000 of an estimated 75,000 dyslexic students are registered as Dedicon readers, so there is unmet need from prospective users; secondly, they produce mainly textbooks, so there is likely to be unmet need for supplementary materials such as workbooks.

TPB in Sweden also produces educational materials on-demand, so regarded the percentage calculation as not relevant.

The issue of on-demand provision points to a conceptual issue around using such percentages as a yardstick of comparative success. Different organisations have made different decisions about priorities; as we have seen, NLS has prioritised making a large number of copies of fewer titles, whereas TPB in Sweden has a percentage target set by the government. The issue is also complicated by the different numbers of titles available in different languages: it takes much more time and resources to make 5% of published titles in the USA and the UK available in alternative formats than a similar percentage of the output of the Dutch publishing industry, for example, because many more titles are published. On the other hand, if copyright constraints can be overcome, English-speaking readers could get access to many more titles than are converted in their own country. Though most readers could be well-satisfied with far less than 100% of all titles being accessible (as most titles published - as opposed to sold - are for specialised readerships), philosophically, this would still remain inequitable, as noted before.

For newspapers and to some extent magazines, taking a percentage of the total available literature is a more useful measure. A sighted reader has access every day to a range of newspapers from which to choose and it is not only desirable but reasonably achievable (as the experience of Sweden and the Netherlands illustrates) to aim at exactly the same result for visually or printimpaired people. While newspaper markets do differ - some countries have national markets whereas in others titles are more localised - there is not the same discrepancy in the target numbers to be converted as there is in the books area. For example, according to World Press Trends, there are 94 daily newspapers in Sweden and 112 in the UK. Counting national paid-for dailies only there are 10 in the UK, 9 in the Netherlands and 4 in Sweden. The USA does present more of a challenge as its market is highly localised: there are 1,452 paid-for daily titles, and really only one that can be considered truly national.

Speed of supply is perhaps most relevant as a target for new works of fiction. The inability to get an accessible copy of an awardwinning or best-selling title which is constantly being reviewed in the press and on TV and radio in less than a year after everyone else is surely extremely frustrating. Here there is no clear sense of any one existing model performing better than another.

For textbooks and academic books, it is the ability of the system to deliver the same materials to visually or print-impaired students at the same time as their sighted peers that is seen as critical. This is very hard to achieve; in universities especially, it is partly a question of educating teachers to produce reading lists well in advance and not to discriminate against some students by suddenly introducing new texts without warning. However, though, it is clear that some systems are delivering timely materials more effectively than others.

The solution must lie in more automated systems using files from publishers' workflows, when the various barriers can be overcome. Synthetic text-to-speech is also being trialled or used in some production processes; it can speed up production time, and its quality is improving considerably. DBB in Denmark markets a tool for producing talking books using synthetic speech, which it claims takes about 1 hour to produce 8 hours of recording. It can be used with compatible speech engines covering different languages or vocabularies. DBB suggests it is most suitable for reference works and manuals, perhaps implying that people would be unlikely to want to listen to a fiction work recorded this way as yet.

Arguments about what is an appropriate measure of availability might seem largely irrelevant when for most users there is neither a high percentage of available material nor a system for delivering it on-demand. However, it is becoming more feasible as a vision because of the existing projects to provide digital files from publishers direct to alternative format producers, and through various digital library initiatives e.g. those from Google, Microsoft and its partners, and the European Commission. It has enormous implications for the way services will be delivered in future, though there are admittedly many technical, economic and other barriers to overcome first.

With all the caveats in place, it still seems worth while to attempt to measure the effectiveness of services partly in terms of the proportion of materials available to people who cannot read conventional print.