[IAEP] I am so excited I can hardly stand it - how about a Daisy Reader too?

[James Simmons]

Marilyn,

The only free source of material in Daisy format that I know of is the
Internet Archive.  For example, one of the books I donated:

http://www.archive.org/details/BigAviationBookForBoys

Looking at the Daisy file it seems to have no advantage over a plain
text file.  I understand that there *are* advantages.  For instance,
if you are blind you can get Daisy format books from IA for books not
in the public domain.  However, from a technical standpoint you could
take the XML file inside the Daisy file, strip out the XML tags, and
load it into Read Etexts and you'd have most of what a real Daisy
reader would give you, at least as far as IA books are concerned.  (IA
books are created by doing OCR on photographed book pages.  The OCR is
high quality but far from perfect).

To make a Daisy reader desirable you'd need a free source of high
quality Daisy files which could not give you a plain text version of
the same content.

Its possible I'm missing something here.  I'm not a Daisy expert.

James Simmons


On Mon, May 30, 2011 at 7:14 PM,  <mokurai at earthtreasury.org> wrote:
> On Mon, May 30, 2011 2:38 pm, Gonzalo Odiard wrote:
>> On Mon, May 30, 2011 at 2:36 PM, <marilyn at ourdyslexicchildren.org> wrote:
>>
>>>  Hi!
>>>
>>> Oh my goodness . . . you can read EPUBs?  That is great!! Even the book
>>> reader people say they can't speak EPUB - I am thinking about KNO and
>>> the
>>> reader that Barnes and Noble is pushing.  They say they can't do it.
>>>
>> Well, the support of epub files in Read activity was done more than a year
>> ago, I think by Sayamindu Dasgupta.
>
> Good to know. I must go test it.
>
>>> Can you also include a Daisy Reader or something that works with the
>>> RFB&D
>>> (Recording For the Blind & Dyslexic) books?
>
> We have been discussing that for years, and some work in that direction
> was done using the text-to-speech engine in Speak, and following the model
> of Same Language Subtitling of Bollywood films with coloring of the text
> as it is spoken or sung. (The most effective literacy campaign in India
> ever.) If you can drum up some volunteer developers or financial support
> for the project we can probably complete it for English and Spanish, and
> then offer it to other language communities for adaptation to their speech
> and writing systems.
>
> Accessibility is one of the critical targets for the Replacing Textbooks
> project that I manage, to get rid of print and go to digital Open
> Education Resources.
>
>>> Now they call themselves
>>> Learning Ally (http://learningally.org).  There is something open source
>>> that works with Firefox for Windows called DDReader.  I am not techy
>>> enough
>>> to know if it is adaptable.  The Learning Ally files are audio.
>>> Formerly
>>> they have been encrypted mp3s or wmas, but now they are in a push to
>>> make
>>> everything more accessible.  They have a huge collection and most
>>> current textbooks.
>>>
>>
>> I think the DDReader works only in Windows.
>
> Correct.
>
>> About the books in learningally.org, are these books free?
>
> Some can be downloaded by registered users at no charge, but thy are not
> generally under free licenses.
>
> Important Copyright Notice
> The contents of all Learning Ally books are protected under copyright law.
> Learning Ally regulates the distribution of materials within a qualified
> member population of individuals who have a learning disability, visual
> impairment or other physical disability, and who have provided documented
> evidence of a print disability
>
>>> I am also a big fan of Librivox.  Last semester I was at an elementary
>>> school and had what I called an audio book server.  I just used the
>>> Gutenberg html versions with embedded audio of Librivox recordings.
>>> Using
>>> the web browser, the child clicked on the book and it started reading
>>> when the text and pictures came up.  Kids liked it.
>>
>> Probably is a good online solution. I don't know how do this offline,
>> because the recorded books a huge.
>
> This is one of the intended uses of School Servers.
>
>>> Can there be some sort of Sugar on a Stick version for dyslexic kids?  I
>>> would definitely promote it and distribute it in Texas.
>
> We would probably not do a separate version, but would include
> accessibility in the base system.
>
>> Probably is a good project, but need people with knowledge about dyslexic
>> and time to create and maintain it.
>
> Nicholas Negroponte is dyslexic. We could talk to him about it.
>
>>> Thanks to all of you who are contributing.  It's great!
>>>
>>
>> Thanks! I am only putting together the different pieces :)
>> We know there are a lot of work to do. but I think we can create a
>> solution in par or better than the commercialy offered.
>>
>> Gonzalo
>>
>>
>>> Marilyn
>
> [Irrelevant messages snipped.]
> --
> Edward Mokurai
> (默雷/धर्ममेघशब्दगर्ज/دھرممیگھشبدگر
> ج) Cherlin
> Silent Thunder is my name, and Children are my nation.
> The Cosmos is my dwelling place, the Truth my destination.
> http://wiki.sugarlabs.org/go/Replacing_Textbooks
>
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