Library brings Web to vision impaired / System reads
information
from
Internet
Friday, January 21, 2000
BY GORDON HICKEY
Times-Dispatch Staff Writer
The voice sounds a little like a mechanical carnival barker,
but
that's
probably just fine with the people who listen to it.
The voice is staccato, utterly lacking in melody, and fast. But
despite
its shortcomings, it is a recognizable voice. And it is reading
information from the Internet and computer programs.
That voice is opening a world that has been largely closed to
many
blind
and visually impaired people.
Yesterday, Mayor Timothy M. Kaine helped 10-year-old Matt
Coffey cut
the
ribbon on a new Assisted Technology Computer Center at
Richmond's
Main
Library on East
Franklin Street. Matt's mother, Kathleen H. Coffey, a
transcriber
for
the
Police Department, helped develop the library's system.
Kathleen
Coffey,
who was blind, died last week of cancer at the age of 44.
But her co-worker on the project, Scott White, was there to
explain
the
system and to demonstrate it.
White, who also is blind, is a senior programmer at Circuit
City.
His
explanation of what the system does was decidedly simple: "It
turns
the
information on the screen into speech."
It uses a combination of software and hardware to accomplish
the
technological feat.
The system consists of three parts. One computer includes the
equipment a blind person might need to read or create an
Internet
document, a Word file or an Excel spreadsheet. It also includes
a
scanner
that will read out loud a printed page.
A second computer includes software that will turn spoken words
into
an
on-screen document.
A third component is a video magnifier that enlarges printed
documents for
the visually impaired.
Anyone who has ever looked at Web pages knows they can be a
mess,
cluttered with ads, graphics and links to other pages. They are
anything
but linear.
White explained that the JAWS software, which is what reads the
information on the screen, "scans past that stuff and gets to
what I
call
the meat of the page."
The equipment is so sophisticated that, "Pretty much anything
you
would
do, with this software a blind person will be able to do."
City Librarian Robert d'O. Rieffel said he began getting the
system
installed about a year ago. "We wanted to make sure we had the
right
stuff
in the right place," he said.
He asked the Library of Virginia for help and eventually got
it. The
state
library gave the city library a grant of $7,600. The city Human
Services
Commission kicked in $2,600, and the Circuit City Foundation
$500,
in
addition to lending the services of White. The remainder of the
$12,500
cost was paid by the city library.
Charles Price, chairman of the Human Services Commission
Committee
on
Elderly and Disabled Issues, attended the ribbon-cutting
ceremony.
"This
we consider a real milestone for Richmond," he said. "This is a
great
way
[for the disabled] to be in and of the world."
White said the system is as easy to use as any other computer
equipment,
which is to say it will take a little practice. "If a person
walks
in
off
the street, nine times out of 10 they are not going to be able
to
use
this," he said.
But he will train the staff to train the users. And the library
has
ordered audiotapes that will explain to any new user how the
system
works.
Rieffel said the library doesn't expect a run on the equipment,
though
there are plenty of potential users. There are 768 legally
blind and
2,042
severely visually impaired residents in Richmond, he said.
"People have asked us, 'Do you get a lot of requests?' The
answer is
no,
because we haven't had it," he said. Now that has changed, and
the
library
is looking forward to putting its new equipment to use.
--
Hands-On Technolog(eye)s
ftp://ftp.clark.net/pub/poehlman
http://poehlman.clark.net
mailto:[log in to unmask]
voice 301-949-7599
end sig.
VICUG-L is the Visually Impaired Computer User Group List.
To join or leave the list, send a message to
[log in to unmask] In the body of the message, simply type
"subscribe vicug-l" or "unsubscribe vicug-l" without the quotations.
VICUG-L is archived on the World Wide Web at
http://maelstrom.stjohns.edu/archives/vicug-l.html
|