Books on tape.

I am of two minds on this one. I have been using books on tape for over 20
years and at that time it was the greatest thing in my personal and academic
life. Over the years I have shifted to scanning my own books and having screen
readers read material on the web.

But there is still something missing. The human contact on the other end. For
some reason I can stay better focused for longer periods of time with a person
that a computer voice. Yes you get good and bad readers but for me there is
something that I like about that also. I remember having a reader try to
describe a picture in a biology book and it was pretty funny.

I will still use scan and read software for an majority of things and now that
I can convert scanned material into Mp3 files I will be doing all my academic
text to CD. And my journals will always be scanned as needed.

But for my lite reading. I bless the books on tape everytime I want to here a
new science fiction book or classic reading. A computer voice no matter how
you reset the voice setting of your computer will never capture the grace and
the emphasis of a person reading a book. At least that is for me.

Just my .02

David

Robert David Dawson, Ph.D.
Coordinator of ICATER
Iowa Center for Assistive Technology and Educational Resources (ICATER)
N168 Lindquist Center
College of Education
University of Iowa
Iowa City, Iowa 52242

Phone: 319-335-5280
Fax: 319-335-5386
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