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-----Original Message-----
From: Dick Banks [mailto:[log in to unmask]]
Sent: Thursday, July 12, 2001 1:23 PM
To: [log in to unmask]
Subject: FRWD: RFB&D Announcement


Got this from another list and I thought some here might be interested

Dick

July 12, 2001

Books for the Blind Go Digital

By CATHERINE GREENMAN

   SINCE 1951, Recording for the Blind and Dyslexic, a nonprofit
organization based in Princeton, has recorded  thousands of textbooks,
from kindergarten- to graduate-level, on cassette tapes that it makes
available to schools
and to blind and dyslexic students.

Books on tape are a boon to students who don't read Braille or who can't
find a Braille edition of a particular textbook.(The organization has
put some 83,000 textbooks on tape, many of them not available in
Braille.) But the tapes, though
not as cumbersome as Braille books, can be unwieldy, with a typical
400-page book requiring 8 to 12 cassettes. Navigating hours of tape to
find a specific page can be tedious.

Now, academic life for blind or dyslexic students is about to get
easier. In the last year, Recording for the Blind and Dyslexic
(www.rfbd.org) has started to record textbooks on CD's that can be
played on PC's or on special players,
designed by such companies as VisuAide or Plextor, that cost about $500.

The CD's hold up to 40 hours of recorded text, enough for the average
textbook, so they take up far less space in a student's backpack. And
instead of a series of beeps to get to a page or a chapter, the student
will be able to move through the text by pushing a button.

The organization has tested the CD recordings among about 1,100 students
in the last year, primarily using CD players called the Victor Reader
and Plextalk. The players have a series of buttons that identify their
functions by voice. Students who have tried the CD's say that using them
will make it easier to juggle several textbooks at a time. "The search
and bookmark functions are really what sets the technology apart from
basic audiocassette books," said Cary Supalo, a 26-year-old graduate
student at Penn State University who saw a demonstration on a Victor
Reader, by VisuAide.

The ability to speed up the reading without raising the voice pitch is
also a plus, Mr. Supalo said. "On a cassette it can sound like
chipmunks," he said.

Recording for the Blind and Dyslexic is equipping its 32 studios and
training staff. It must also work out digital rights arrangements with
publishers. New recordings of both old and new textbooks are expected to
be available to members
of the organization by late next year, said Morgan Roth, a spokeswoman.

The organization plans to enhance the CD's so that when they are played
on a personal computer, they will display text simultaneously, allowing
visually impaired students who can still read to follow along with the
spoken word.
Producing the digital recordings, which requires one volunteer who reads
aloud and another who reads along to check for mistakes, takes about the
same time as recording the books on cassette: about an hour and 45
minutes for every hour
of spoken word.

John A. Churchill, senior vice president for operations at Recording for
the Blind and Dyslexic, said that the move to digital recordings was
costly but necessary. "It's a massive undertaking for us to retrain our
staff to learn how to record digitally, but it's eminently worth it," he
said.

"The
 equipment that allows us to record on cassette hasn't been
manufactured for years," he said, "and we didn't want to find ourselves
in a situation where a vendor could no longer supply us with equipment."
But the organization will
continue to produce cassettes, Mr. Churchill said, because demand is
strong.


                                                        Copyright 2001
The New York Times Company |
--
*   *   *   *   *   *   *   *   *   *   *   *   *   *
Victor H. Margolis, Ed.D
Prof. Emeritus Nassau Community College.
former Coord. Center for Students with Disabilities.

Consultant, Access Solutions, Higher Education,

788 Columbus Ave., Apt 8G,  New York, N.Y.10025-5932
Tel; (212)666-8911; EMAIL; [log in to unmask]

Dick Banks    CIO EASI
Equal Access to Software and Information
http://www.easi.cc/
CELL Number 715-556-4587