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I second the suggestion of audio books and also recommend the Daisy consortium. My grandmother-in-law has macular degeneration that has progressed from impaired to blind over the course of a couple of years, so last year I decided to read her an audiobook for a Christmas present (it was a local history book that wasn't present in the audiobook library.) There was a lot to learn, and it took a surprising amount of time and effort to get started and organized. Actually recording the book was only half the work!

First, I had to learn about the readers. Grandma has a Digital Talking Book (DTB) player that she got for free from the National Library Service of the Library of Congress. Here's the player description: http://www.loc.gov/nls/businessplan/playerdescription.html . These players now take USB memory, instead of the old cassettes.

The USB memory cartridge is a standard USB mass storage device in a specially shaped accessible plastic carrier. I bought mine from one of the links from the NLS page (the vendor was Perkins) for $14.00 for a 2GB device. I also bought the $5 cable thinking it was something special that I'd need to interface to the cartridge (having never seen a cartridge before), but it turned out to be nothing more than an ordinary USB extension cable. A cable is needed because the plastics of the cartridge carrier shield the USB connection so it won't plug directly into a laptop or PC port; but if you already have an extension cord laying around, you don't have to buy another one.

Then I had to learn what digital format the book should be recorded in. While the DTBs can play raw WAVs, MP3s, and other audio formats, I learned they work best with books described in the DAISY format. Daisy is an XML description of the audio book. It permits audio navigation by section (chapter), skip ahead and skip back by phrase (paragraph or sentence), and is specially designed for this purpose.

There were several commercial products you can use to record a book, and you can spend just about any amount of money you want on them. I wanted to use GPL software to help me record the book, as this isn't an area where I want to support profiteering. I found the Obi software from the Daisy consortium. http://www.daisy.org/obi It can do the recording capture as well as assemble the recorded fragments into the DAISY 3 format. It has algorithms that help you easily break up a recording into phrases. By inserting pauses while you speak, the software can identify those as separate phrases. And it's java, so it runs on any platform that supports audio.

Apart from that you need a quiet room to record in, a clear voice, a decent headset and microphone, and enough time to read the book. It took me quite a while. I'd say it was about 8 hours of recording to capture a two hour book, but it was my first attempt. And I got faster as I progressed, with fewer "umms" and "ahhs" that required me to go back and rerecord a phrase. Rather than try to read the whole book straight through and break it up later, I recorded and edited the audio on a chapter by chapter basis. This let me hear how I was doing so I could improve. I think a practiced speaker could do it much more quickly than I did, and in one take with just a few retakes for mistakes, but I'm certainly not that good yet.

When it was done, I exported the book in the Daisy 3 format, then copied the book files to the cartridge. I gave it to her for Christmas, never even having the chance to test it on a real DTB reader, but it worked fine. I asked her about it after Christmas, and she simply said she had read it one morning. All the work I had done with sections and phrases, none of that mattered to her, and she used none of it. A cassette tape would have sufficed for her. (She has no idea how much effort goes into producing an audio book, nor is she interested.) But I now have a DTB version of the book that is ready for distribution. I still need to contact the book's publisher to see if they're interested in it.

I know you said audio books were not your preferred solution but you should checkout the talking book program from the National Library Service, http://www.loc.gov/nls. The materials and equipment are provided free of charge to US residents and citizens living abroad. Another good source of information is the daisy consortium, http://www.daisy.org./ Daisy has developed standards and tools for accessibility. There are commercial products as well Humanware is probably the best known manufacturer but as I'm sure you are finding out these solutions can be quite expensive. A less expensive Android device could be another alternative as there are apps now being developed for assitive reading. Although, honestly iOS curently does a much better job of being accessible. I have heard the next version of Android will offer accessibilty improvements but that is probably 6-12 months away.

PDF is documented by ISO http://www.iso.org/iso/catalogue_detail.htm?csnumber=51502

I'm not particularly happy about standards where you have to pay for the spec, but it's better than having a completely secret standard.

ePub is open: http://www.daisy.org/epub/

Mobi, I'll take your word for. It's proprietary but (unfortunately) a defacto standard of sorts.

Just as with the iPod my bet is that this device will not be accessible to the blind or print disabled. How hard would it be to add DAISY http://www.daisy.org/ support to this. Daisy is the international standard for digital talking books produced by the various talking book libraries.

At some point organizations such as the National Federation of the Blind http://www.nfb.org/ are going to start to sue hardware makers, web sites and so on under the ADA for creating inaccessible products.

My bet is like the iPod there is no provision in this thing for the print disabled (blind or dyslexic) to be able to use it.

Really now how hard would it be to build DAISY http://www.daisy.org/ access into this, or other similar devices?

I suppose that we'll have to wait for the NFB http://www.nfb.org/ or the ACB http://www.acb.org/ to sue some hardware maker under the ADA before they will stop making these things that can't be used by the blind. That goes for Slashdot and it's imaged based posting requirement too.

I mentioned this in my journal almost 2 years ago (yet another rejected submission:) All links are still good, mostly covering the e-book and fair access for the blind.

There are over 10 million visually impaired people just in the US who are being blinded by the DMCA. On the back page of Software Developer, Warren Keuffel has a commentary (free reg) that summarizes what he found to be issues still brewing over the use of the DMCA to prevent people from implementing technology designed to translate eBooks into Braille. XML is being used now to facilitate the translations of eBooks and other electronic formats and to help disabled people get simple access to reading material that others of us may take for granted. The DMCA effectively blocks many of these new innovations (go figure). Is short, the American Federation for the Blind has sent comments the US Copyright office, Congress is looking at the issue, The Association of American Publishers is fighting it, all the while fair-use and disabled students continue to suffer.

There is a standardized format for talking books on CD called DAISY. My mother is blind and I put together a PERL script that takes a DAISY cd, extracts the title/author/chapter information from the DAISY index file and then embeds that as MP3 tags at the end of the MP3s. I then load that onto an iPod so that she can carry around 10-20 books with her without having to carry the fairly large DAISY reader. Huge benefits of the iPod (3rd gen, not 4th): - audible feedback when you push a button or use the scroll wheel (clicks) - customization of main menu to remove irrelevant entries and can put browse by album (book title) at top of menu - separate tactile buttons for play/pause and skip track (chapter). with the 4th gen iPod, these buttons were integrated into the scroll wheel like the iPod mini - much harder to use - large storage capacity - each book is on average 500 MB

• One or more digital audio files containing a human narration of part or all of the source text;
• A marked-up file containing some or all of the text (strictly speaking, this marked-up text file is optional);
• A synchronization file to relate markings in the text file with time points in the audio file; and
• A navigation control file which enables the user to move smoothly between files while synchronization between text and audio is maintained.

The blind/dyslexic community has for years been working on an open standard for e-texts. Why not use it? There are many readers available to read these texts and it would be nearly trivial to use the Text-to-speech (TTS) features of Mac OS X and Windows to do this (I don't know the TTS features avail to Linux (sorry)).

From the DAISY Consortium's Web site:

http://www.daisy.org/about_us/default.asp

In 1997, the DAISY Consortium decided to adopt open standards based on file formats being developed for the Internet. The DAISY 2.0 specification was released in 1998, and the 2.02 recommendation was approved in February 2001. Release of DAISY 3, the ANSI/NISO Z39.86 2002 standard was official in March 2002. This standard was jointly developed by the DAISY Consortium, The National Library Service for the Blind and Physically Handicapped (part of the Library of Congress), and a variety of other organizations in North America. Plans are underway for the development of the supporting materials necessary to promote the standard.

A DAISY book can be explained as a set of digital files that includes:

One or more digital audio files containing a human narration of part or all of the source text;

A marked-up file containing some or all of the text (strictly speaking, this marked-up text file is optional);

A synchronization file to relate markings in the text file with time points in the audio file; and

A navigation control file which enables the user to move smoothly between files while synchronization between text and audio is maintained.

The DAISY standard allows the producing agency full flexibility regarding the mix of text and audio ranging from audio-only, to full text and audio, to text-only.

Why not use the Daisy format? The community providing books for the media challenged have worked hard for years to provide an open standard. From their Web site:
http://www.daisy.org/about_us/default.asp

In 1997, the DAISY Consortium decided to adopt open standards based on file formats being developed for the Internet. The DAISY 2.0 specification was released in 1998, and the 2.02 recommendation was approved in February 2001. Release of DAISY 3, the ANSI/NISO Z39.86 2002 standard was official in March 2002. This standard was jointly developed by the DAISY Consortium, The National Library Service for the Blind and Physically Handicapped (part of the Library of Congress), and a variety of other organizations in North America. Plans are underway for the development of the supporting materials necessary to promote the standard.

A DAISY book can be explained as a set of digital files that includes:

One or more digital audio files containing a human narration of part or all of the source text;
A marked-up file containing some or all of the text (strictly speaking, this marked-up text file is optional);
A synchronization file to relate markings in the text file with time points in the audio file; and
A navigation control file which enables the user to move smoothly between files while synchronization between text and audio is maintained.
The DAISY standard allows the producing agency full flexibility regarding the mix of text and audio ranging from audio-only, to full text and audio, to text-only.

The site seems to be dead currently, but that's undoubtedly just the Slashdot Effect.

I have no idea what they're using, but for the sake of accessibility and future-compatibility, I hope they're following the standards of the DAISY Consortium. DAISY has devised a standard for talking books which deserves support, especially as it's been specifically designed to provide accessibility for people with disabilities.

Learn more about the DAISY Consortium here, and in the FAQ here.

--Kynn

The site seems to be dead currently, but that's undoubtedly just the Slashdot Effect.

I have no idea what they're using, but for the sake of accessibility and future-compatibility, I hope they're following the standards of the DAISY Consortium. DAISY has devised a standard for talking books which deserves support, especially as it's been specifically designed to provide accessibility for people with disabilities.

Learn more about the DAISY Consortium here, and in the FAQ here.

--Kynn

The site seems to be dead currently, but that's undoubtedly just the Slashdot Effect.

I have no idea what they're using, but for the sake of accessibility and future-compatibility, I hope they're following the standards of the DAISY Consortium. DAISY has devised a standard for talking books which deserves support, especially as it's been specifically designed to provide accessibility for people with disabilities.

Learn more about the DAISY Consortium here, and in the FAQ here.

--Kynn

The site seems to be dead currently, but that's undoubtedly just the Slashdot Effect.

I have no idea what they're using, but for the sake of accessibility and future-compatibility, I hope they're following the standards of the DAISY Consortium. DAISY has devised a standard for talking books which deserves support, especially as it's been specifically designed to provide accessibility for people with disabilities.

Learn more about the DAISY Consortium here, and in the FAQ here.

--Kynn