As someone who lives in a place with access to one of the world's largest
publicly accessible research libraries (the University of Illinois at Urbana
Champaign with nine million volumes), I am fortunate that for nearly
everything that will be on Google I could order from the University of
Illinois and scan it in myself. I empathize with those who don't have
access to the resources I have though. I suspect that at a certain stage of
critical mass, some arrangement for blind access will be developed once they
get the overall program off the ground. Already, the New York times is
hinting that congress should worry about author's rights. If the government
gets involved before this project is off the ground, nothing will happen for
anyone.
for comparison, consider that commercially produced unabridged audio books
produced in previous years are now being made available to the blind online
in a limited test and methods are being developed on how to make these
titles more widely available.
Kelly
----- Original Message -----
From: "severine" <[log in to unmask]>
To: <[log in to unmask]>
Sent: Friday, December 24, 2004 3:11 AM
Subject: Hoogle can't provide any timeframe for accessibility
> Hi listers,
> Here is a second letter from google about the accessibility of their =
> scanned matterial. I'm not so happy about the answer, but I don't see =
> much more I can do.
>
> -----Oorspronkelijk bericht-----
> Van: Google Print Support [mailto:[log in to unmask]]
> Verzonden: donderdag 23 december 2004 1:01
> Aan: severine
> Onderwerp: Re: [#18456762] When Will the text be accessible?
>
>
> Hello Severine,
>
> Thank you for your response.
>
> Unfortunately we cannot provide a time frame for when Google Print will =
> be
> more readily available to those who are visually impaired. As this is
> still a young program, we are working as hard as we can to make Google
> Print universally accessible.=20
>
> Additionally, while we cannot get into any details about the digital
> formats that we use, we hope to provide an appropriate solution to this
> issue. With regard to how books will be offered, at this time we intend =
> to
> offer the full text for titles that are in the public domain. Books that
> are still in copyright will show up in our search results, but users =
> will
> only be able to view very small text snippets and/or bibliographic
> information until we get permission from the publisher to show full page
> views. For more descriptions of how Google is treating these materials,
> please visit http://print.google.com/library .=20
>
> Sincerely,
>
> The Google Team
>
>
>
> Original Message Follows:
> ------------------------
> From: "severine" <[log in to unmask]>
> Subject: When Will the text be accessible?
> Date: Tue, 21 Dec 2004 09:39:21 +0100
>
> Dear Google-print representative,
> I thank you very much for your response.
> [...]
> At this time, Google Print content excerpt pages may not be compatible
>
> HOW long do you expect that "this time" will last?
> WHAT means "may not be accessible"? in which format are the exerpt? If
> they are images in tiff or jpeg format, for instance, VI people can run =
> an
> OCR on those files and access that way. Or is that also impossible?
> What is your policy as far as accessing a whole book is concerned? Will =
> it
> be possible to borrow a book that way or to buy it?
> Good luck with your project, and please don't forget to keep me informed
> when books will be more accessible.
> Merry Christmas to you,
> S=E9verine Renard
>
>
> VICUG-L is the Visually Impaired Computer User Group List.
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>
>
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
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