The New Age of Producing, Distributing, and Consuming Accessible Information
1. The New Age of Producing,
Distributing, and
Consuming Accessible
Information
A paradigm shift
Bernhard Heinser
b.heinser@sbs.ch
IFLA - eBooks for everyone!
Paris, 23 August 2014
1
2. The commercial market adopts
EPUB 3 (including education and STEM)
EPUB 3 is the best solution for
accessibility purposes
Bernhard Heinser
b.heinser@sbs.ch
Presumptions
IFLA - eBooks for everyone!
Paris, 23 August 2014
2
3. Consuming Electronic
Publications - Key Aspects
Navigability (absolutely necessary for everybody, print
disabled or not)
Rendering modalities (text, audio [human narration /
text-to-speech], image, video, [Braille output through Braille display])
Perception channels (one modality can be
alternatively replaced / complemented by other modalities,
synchronization of the rendering modalities)
Bernhard Heinser
b.heinser@sbs.ch
IFLA - eBooks for everyone!
Paris, 23 August 2014
3
4. Current Model
Separate Work Flows
Publishing industry / print oriented /
mainstream formats / mainstream distribution channels
Products are not accessible
Specialized agencies / multimedia oriented /
special formats / special distribution channels
Accessibility is added through ex post
format conversion processes
Bernhard Heinser
b.heinser@sbs.ch
IFLA - eBooks for everyone!
Paris, 23 August 2014
4
5. Future Model
Integrated Work Flows
►The publishing industry brings (electronic)
publications to the market that are born
accessible
►Where necessary, the industry is supported
by the accessibility experts before the
product is delivered
Bernhard Heinser
b.heinser@sbs.ch
IFLA - eBooks for everyone!
Paris, 23 August 2014
5
6. Required Changes
Publishing industry:
From print oriented to multiple
output formats oriented work flows
Specialized agencies :
From producers of accessible material
to service providers for the publishing
industry
Bernhard Heinser
b.heinser@sbs.ch
IFLA - eBooks for everyone!
Paris, 23 August 2014 6
7. Who benefits?
The publishing industry (considerably
enlarged market)
Persons with Disabilities throughout
the world (several hundreds of millions)
The States (implementing the UN Convention on
the Rights of Persons with Disabilities)
The whole society (Inclusion)
Bernhard Heinser
b.heinser@sbs.ch
IFLA - eBooks for everyone!
Paris, 23 August 2014 7
8. Conclusion in the Light of
Converging Interests
INCLUSIVE PUBLISHING
All stakeholders are invited to
combine their efforts in order to
implement a system that benefits
EVERYBODY
Bernhard Heinser
b.heinser@sbs.ch
IFLA - eBooks for everyone!
Paris, 23 August 2014 8
Editor's Notes
Until recently, it was a dream and not even thinkable, actually, that the new age of producing and consuming accessible information I am going to anticipate over the next 20 minutes could be the result of a natural evolution, if I may say.
The key words in this respect are: digital age; multimedia integration; mainstream standardization for electronic publications (including textbooks and STEM material); and the demand of the consumers.
Those elements greatly inures to the benefit of both the persons with print disabilities and the publishing industry.
My projection is based on the following two main presumptions.
The commercial market adopts EPUB 3
What the current market delivers in terms of eBooks is mainly limited to fiction. The products are electronic one-to-one copies of the print book. No advanced functionalities, no popular non-fiction, no textbooks, no scientific material. In short: a very poor landscape.
This will change with the adoption of the EPUB 3 standard that allows for what the market waits for since years, the enhanced eBook.
The standard is continuously complemented and further developed: dictionaries, glossaries, annotations, EDUPUB (EPUB 3 textbook profile). Big players in the publishing industry like Elsevier, Pearson, O’Reilly, Hachette, IBM, de Gruyter and others have announced they adopt or will adopt EPUB as their format for electronic publications.
EPUB 3 is the best solution for accessibility purposes
Accessibility was and is one of the key goals of the EPUB standardization processes since the beginning of the development. DAISY and much more accessibility relevant aspects are fully integrated into and covered by the standard.
In other words: the industry standard for electronic publications allows for the production of accessible eBooks and accessible enhanced eBooks.
Why electronic documents are best suited for accessibility? There are three basic aspects.
Navigability
Knowing where I am in a document, being able to immediately go to the chapter I want to read, being aware I currently read a footnote etc.) is absolutely key for any effective reading.
Ensuring navigability in an electronic book means: it is not longer enough to rely on the typographically rendered structure of the document. The publishing industry is compelled to capture the underlying structural information and to make it a part of the electronic product - which is by the way an enormous benefit for print disabled persons.
Rendering modalities
By experience we know that digital technology has powerful multimedia capabilities. We are familiar with consuming Text, Sound, Images, Videos on web pages. EPUB 3 products have the same and even improved integrated multimedia capabilities, mainly through what is called media overlays, the synchronization of media streams (so far: text/audio).
Perception Channels
The multimedia capability of the technology opens doors widely regarding accessibility as it implies that one rendering modality can be replaced and/or complemented by other modalities.