The below posting was a good article about the next generation of NLS
(National Library Service) book players. But "era" would be a better word
than "generation, since the cassette players that they still send out look
like they were designed by Fisher Price in the mid 1950s.
If they think that they can come up with a design that will last for the
next 50 years, they are wrong. While switching to a digitally based format
is a must, the playback technology will continue to evolve rapidly and the
NLS should be prepared to go with the flow.
Reading needs, either for different users or different reading materials,
will range from simply listening to an audio recording of a voice, to
having access to the source text, for example, to check spellings of names,
page numbers, footnotes, etc., in the print editions for academic purposes.
Instantaneous advancing from paragraph to paragraph, page to page, and
chapter to chapter, in addition to the ability to speed up or slow down the
reading rates without altering the speech quality will be technologically
feasible and very useful for just about everybody.
A future innovation might allow the reader to have simultaneous access to
both the speech and text. That is, while listening to a reader's voice, the
reader could press a button and get the spelling and page number of a
particular word that was just heard. Also, the ability to insert bookmarks
at desired passages, and even to cut and paste text for research purposes
would greatly speed up the blind or dyslexic scholar.
Let's hope that the NLS gets flexible and future-oriented. My concern is
that they will simplify the units for the largest visually impaired
demographic, the elderly, who tend to shy away from complex technologies
and have mobility issues. My dread is that the playback unit of the future
will be simplified down to four big buttons, ideal for the arthritic
grandmother whose most demanding reading need will be The Joy of Cooking.
Peter Seymour
At 03:51 PM 6/15/02 -0400, David Poehlman wrote:
>----- Original Message -----
>From: "Janina Sajka" <[log in to unmask]>
>To: <[log in to unmask]>; <[log in to unmask]>
>Sent: Saturday, June 15, 2002 3:43 PM
>Subject: All Ears: Library Service Seeks New Digital Player
>
>
>>From today's Washington Post regarding the National Library
>Service for the Blind and Physically Handicapped here in the U.S.
>and its progress toward serving patrons with Digital Talking
>Books:
>
>
>washingtonpost.com
>All Ears: Library Service Seeks New Digital Player
>
>By Linda Hales
>Washington Post Staff Writer
>Saturday, June 15, 2002; Page C01
>
>For 71 years, the Library of Congress has served as the nation's
>guardian
>angel of literacy, ensuring the blind and reading-disabled free access
>to
>millions of talking books and magazines. Now the digital revolution is
>about
>to make that task easier -- or harder still -- depending on how well the
>library succeeds in its new role as design patron.
>
>The library is planning a $75 million, three-year conversion from
>cassette
>tapes to microchips -- the audio program's first technological update in
>three decades.
>
>The goal is to trade 23 million cassettes for memory cards, just as
>vinyl
>was supplanted by tape back in the 1970s. To do so, the library, which
>supplies special playback equipment, will need by 2008 a new digital
>device
>to serve 730,000 reading-disabled people. As many as 3 million people
>may be
>eligible for the program, which is operated by a branch of the library
>known
>as the National Library Service for the Blind and Physically
>Handicapped.
>Director Frank Kurt Cylke calls this "the greatest challenge NLS has
>ever
>faced."
>
>Consumer electronics are among the most evolved of modern designs,
>incorporating the latest technology, dazzling aesthetics and
>user-friendliness. But those involved in the talking-book program
>believe
>the library's next-generation machine will need features not available
>in
>standard off-the-shelf products. While PCs and cell phones are becoming
>throwaway equipment, the library is focusing on the kind of durability
>that
>has enabled its current machine design to survive so long. "We can't
>afford
>to go through massive, wrenching changes like this very often," explains
>Michael Moodie, NLS research and development officer.
>
>To figure out what such a machine might look like, and how it might
>work,
>the library enlisted the Industrial Designers Society of America,
>headquartered near Dulles airport. IDSA turned the quest into a contest
>involving industrial design students across the country. June 7 was
>judgment
>day.
>
>More than 140 prototypes were spread out on tables in a conference room
>at
>the NLS offices at 13th and Taylor streets NW, in Petworth. There were
>pocket-size players and tabletop entries. Some models resembled silvery
>boomboxes and retro phones. One device was shaped like a football.
>Another
>looked like Darth Vader's helmet. A silvery "Lady Bug" had all the
>sleekness
>anyone could expect in the 21st century but broke the contest rules by
>requiring a separate docking station.
>
>Students had been asked to incorporate real-world needs of users:
>tactile
>markings for sightless readers; large controls for arthritic hands to
>manipulate; portability, but also extraordinary stability. All were
>supposed
>to be impervious to spilled drinks and able to withstand occasional
>shipping
>in little more than a Manila envelope.
>
>Agile young minds responded with a mind-bending array of buttons,
>levers,
>hinges and even a zipper that could activate functions. Most of the
>youthful
>designers had taken inspiration from the tools of their environment: PC
>gaming gadgets, MP3 players and contemporary "blob" architecture.
>
>But as the jury of six professional designers and senior library staff
>members worked their way around the room, a clear preference emerged for
>something familiar. First prize went to a prototype in the shape of a
>book.
>
>The winner was "Dook," a rectangular device that opened like a standard
>volume. Designer Lachezar Tsvetanov, a junior at the University of
>Bridgeport in Connecticut, put the controls in one half, speakers and
>memory
>card in the other half, and volume regulator in the hinge.
>
>Tsvetanov, who grew up in Bulgaria, chose the form for two reasons. He
>thought a book would be immediately familiar to seniors, who make up
>half
>the program's users and are seen as wary of new technology. The designer
>was
>also determined that people who needed talking books be able to blend
>into
>the world around them.
>
>"Users want to be like anybody else," he said. "If you see a young blind
>person walking down the street and holding an odd-shaped product, it
>would
>really stand out."
>
>Tsvetanov will be awarded $5,000 for ingenuity at the industrial design
>society's annual conference July 20-23 in Monterey, Calif. And his
>device
>will be displayed at the library's Madison Building on Capitol Hill,
>along
>with four second- and third-place winners.
>
>The contest was not intended to produce a design for manufacture. The
>NLS
>hoped merely to glean ideas for the next step in the process before
>asking
>Congress to put millions into the 2005 budget for a total upgrade.
>
>Director Cylke estimates the cost of converting to the new system will
>be
>"an additional $25 million a year for a three-year period." The current
>NLS
>budget is about $48 million.
>
>Design innovation has empowered the audiobook program from the start.
>According to the NLS, the long-playing record was invented for the
>talking
>book program in the 1930s. In the 1970s, the library developed a special
>player for its four-track tapes, which can play for six hours.
>(Copyright
>law requires that NLS materials be usable only by program participants.)
>The
>1970s-era tape player, which is large and ungainly by today's standard,
>is
>still in use today.
>
>Throughout the judging process, Moodie worried aloud about the potential
>for
>breakage, the difficulty of manufacturing, and the cost. Fellow judge
>Brian
>Matt, an industrial designer from Boston who teaches at MIT and the
>Rhode
>Island School of Design, held out for something smart and aesthetically
>pleasing. Thomas Bickford, an NLS senior reviewer for audiobooks,
>couldn't
>see and didn't care what color the buttons were, only whether he could
>feel
>his way around the controls. Jim Mueller, an industrial designer in
>Chantilly and an IDSA expert in universally accessible design, was taken
>with the idea of a digital book.
>
>"I can't think of anything that could be a more eloquent format," he
>said
>later.
>
>The NLS began on an experimental basis transferring cassette titles to
>digital format last year. By the library's own count, at least 1 million
>digital machines will be needed.
>
>There is also a move to make use of PCs. A software-based talking book
>player is being tested on a PC. Some eligible readers have DSL lines or
>cable and are asking for Internet delivery, which the NLS hopes to begin
>in
>a limited fashion in 2003.
>
>But Moodie believes there will be a need for a playback machine for a
>long
>time to come. "You can't say to somebody, 'You have to buy a PC if you
>want
>to read,' " he says.
>
>
>
>© 2002 The Washington Post Company
>
>Janina Sajka, Director
>Technology Research and Development
>Governmental Relations Group
>American Foundation for the Blind (AFB)
>
>Email: [log in to unmask] Phone: (202) 408-8175
>
>Chair, Accessibility SIG
>Open Electronic Book Forum (OEBF)
>http://www.openebook.org
>
> Please avoid sending me Word or PowerPoint attachments.
> See http://www.fsf.org/philosophy/no-word-attachments.html
>
>
>
>
>
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Peter Seymour
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