Just to add to this thread you can download Dolphin’s reader app called easy
reader. Here you will find book share Ireland. By default it is turned off.
Albert
On Nov 15, 2019, at 09:48, RobbieS <robbiesin@xxxxxxxxx> wrote:
Hi Dominique,
Thanks for sharing this.
In the interest of healthy public discourse I make the following observations:
The provision of accessible reading materials for people with a visual
impairment throughout our education system, and in society generally,
has been, and continues to be deplorable. Some of us were even in
touch with the NCBI as early as 2007 to propose such a scheme (with
emails to prove it), but the idea was frebuffed.
But, although, in academic terms, a half a million titles isn’t very
much, the longest journeys begin with little steps etc., on the face
of it, this new BookShare scheme should be like motherhood and apple
pie…nothing to see here apart from NCBI getting its plaudits and
potentially more funding etc, as well as the potential benefits for
the reader with a visual impairment.
But as some of us argued (unsuccessfully) during the doomed Copyright
Bill (2016), all access to information needs to be based on the
concept of Universal Design, a need which has become a legal
obligation since Ireland’s ratification of the CRPD in 2018.
In effect, this means that all print-disabled people need to be able
to access print information at the same point and time as their
non-disabled comparitors, necessitating a system where accessibility
is built in as a corner-stone to every library and State-funded
publication.
The placing of such an essential service under the sole domain of a
service-providing charity serves that charity above all other
considerations, because it positions itself as being indispensable,
and so, less accountable in the provision of such an essential
service.
The responsibility of enabling such a Human Right as that of access to
Education and social inclusion, as laid out in the CRPD, lies squarely
with the State, and in this regard, the State must involve
non-service-providers as a priority in the consultation process.
