E-libraries and E-publishing for print disabled
people state of the art and future perspective
E-libraries and E-publishing for print disabled people state of the art and future perspective
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E-libraries and E-publishing for print disabled people state of the art and future perspective |
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Introduction
Due to a lack of exact data let us start with three estimations summarizing
the situation in service provision for print disabled people the last years:
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These estimations enable us to outline areas where ICT should contribute to a considerable improvement of the situation to be discussed in this paper:
Mainstreaming: Opportunities by participating computer supported and e-publishing
Efficient digitisation: Making more documents available
Document management, e-catalogues and e-libraries: Co-operation between actors and distribution of information on accessible documents
Networking: Co-operation to avoid unnecessary efforts
We will start with a look at the convergence of interests in general publishing
as well as service provision for print disabled people. We will focus on the
work done at i3s3 in Austria.
e-documents, e-publishing, e-libraries and Services for Print Disabled People:
Convergence of Interests
"Ante Gutenberg" blind people did not have a lot of problems with
printed documents - not a lot were used. Speech was the major tool for communication
and dissemination of knowledge. The Gutenberg revolution brought forward print
disabilities. The more books became part of everyday life reading skills, access
to written documents and education based on documents became a prerequisite
for taking part in almost any part of society. Therefore not only more possibilities
to choose, to store and to use knowledge were brought forward; people became
forced to use these possibilities what established print disabilities for those
without access to printed documents and who are therefore dependent on alternative
formats.
"Post Gutenberg",the age we are entering since the beginning of the
80ies of last century print disabledpeople get access to documents more independently
and efficiently by using computers and assitive technology.
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Digitisation and handling electronic documents became a key issue in service provision. These are also key issues in business, administration, culture or leisure. Therefore we can find a convergence of interests and concepts based on the separation of different layers in documents for content representation, handling (managing, storing, preserving) and presenting of information at the MMI. As the figure above wants to outline a standardised set of meta data offers the possibility to mark up documents in a way that the contents can be accessed and handled at the HCI in different ways according to the needs (preferences) of any user. |
In the moment of accessing the document is prepared for presentation and handling according to the needs of the user in a specific situation and environment. The same document which is enriched with meta data can be viewed and used in different ways
Due to:
the universal usage of ICT in almost any aspect of our lives
standardisation of interfaces between the different layers (meta data)
the multimedia power and assistive technologies
adaptiveness and persuasive computing
Accessibility and services for print disabled people could become more and more
as an integral part of the document management and publishing process and should
not be treated, as in the Gutenberg age, as a special, separated service.
There is evidence that accessibility and usability of electronic documents for
people with disabilities are ancestors and promoters to this multipurpose use
of documents. Today's challenging research and development areas like adaptive
user interfaces, mobile and persuasive computing [Fogg, 99] are widening the
core concepts of accessibility and usability for people with disabilities. The
increasing flexibility of MMI has been most important for those users who are
not able to use standard interaction methods either because of a disability
or a functional limitations in special situations (e.g. a car driver who has
to keep his hands on the wheel when he wants to fulfil other tasks like handling
the radio, the GPS device, the mobile telephone or other). Often not more than
an alternative for ordinary users, this has become a unique possibility for
"extra-ordinary" users. [Edwards 95]
As one librarian expressed it: working in the field of library service for print
disabled people introduces to and employs first - at least at an experimental
basis - the emerging and future ICT. Digital document management, copyright
management, meta-data enrichment of documents, virtual libraries, e-books, …
have been in discussion in the field of print disabled people years before they
became virulent for ICT and the Internet in general.
Standardisation and especially platform, user and situation independent description
of content, handling and presentation using meta data also will be the most
important area for service provision be it in the co-operating with authors
and publishers, for workflow management or for client relationship. The most
important and recent developments like DAISY [Daisy, 02], secure document delivery
[Wesley, 00] but also areas like access to math and science [Karshmer, 01] focus
on the usage of meta data for better access and usability, on converting meta
data for AT and on standardisation to improve the sustainability of these developments.
Mainstreaming: Publishing and Document Management - Points of Access for Print Disabled People
There is no more publishing without the usage of ICT: Authors, editors, publishers,
printing houses and today also readers make use of ICT. All versions of digital
documents in this process could be seen as points of access. In practice major
difficulties occur:
We know, as George Kersher form the DAISY consortium described it in a keynote
speech at Techshare in November 2001 [Techshare, 01], that publishers are very
reluctant in employing well defined models of meta data and workflows based
on e-documents out of very doubtful reasons. Although the advantages for clients,
society and publishers themselves are obvious economical fear, copyright issues
and lack of competence make them sceptic. A coherent usage of mark-up languages
supporting
an up to date, flexible and multi media usage of documents
an efficient internal workflow support,
up to date customer relations,
support of automatic cataloguing and long time preservation are not employed or supported.
These would be the basic necessities for an efficient integration of service
provision for print disabled people.
Experiences show that the usage of set formats of publishers asks for major
investments in converting their formats into accessible ones. Of course these
formats contain meta data but they are proprietary, non standard and often differ
from document to document. There are only a few big publishing houses in the
German speaking area with a general, well documented and maintained set of meta
data.
The experiences at i3s3 show that authors, proof readers and editors do use
standard editors nd formats (MS Word, LaTeX). These are of course major points
of access for service providers for print disabled people. Authors and proof
readers also keep a copy of these working documents - publishers most of the
time don't out of whatever reason what also shows how badly documents and workflows
are managed. Integration into and efficient co-operation with publishers to
increase services provision for print disabled people depends on efficient workflow
and e-document management; it is also a prerequisite for reducing the fears
and misunderstandings concerning the exchange of e-documents.
What would be the ideal format? Several proposals which are mostly based on
D. Knuths TeX system [Knuth, 83] were not able to overcome interests / problems
of the publishing and editor industry. The usage of proprietary formats and
a lack of interoperability led to the need of conversion but often also for
re-editing and layout of documents when other or new version of software tools
became used or documents should be presented in an other way.
The Internet puts pressure on the situation to allow multipurpose, multi modal
and user centred use of one source file. Today more and more publishers do follow
concepts like XML (http://www.w3.org/tr/rec-xml) what promises considerable
improvements for service providers for print disabled people. Proposals to hand
over electronic copies of published documents to National Libraries in well
defined formats and according legal frameworks should help to save resources
at both publisher's and National Library's side. This again would offer a promising
point of access.
Last but not least access to documents is recognised as a basic human right
in the Information Society. Copy Right Management (CRM) and secure delivery
are again important areas of converging interests. The Internet and distribution
of digital documents ask for a proper legal framework for e-documents. Access
to information and the need for accessing documents in the format needed is
not only an economic need of the Internet but has to be seen as a basic human
right in the Information Society. Publishing is no longer only a right of stake
holders but also a duty of serving the public including people with disabilities.
The recent directive on the Harmonisation of Certain Aspects of Copyright and
Related Rights in the Information Society (Directive 2001/29/EC of the European
Parliament and Council) is an example that this is understood more and more
as a necessity in an open and democratic necessity. [EBU, 02] i3s3 initiated
a awareness campaign that the needs of print disabled people are taken into
account in these changes of national law according to the EU directive. Without
such technical and according legal advances the digital divide would grow and
people with print disabilities would be put at a disadvantage. Technical solutions
to the copyright problem have been proposed [Sedodel, 00]. Again the convergence
of interests in digital documents seems to bring us closer to a solution.
Efficient Digitisation
Experiences with the publishing industry and their reluctance and inefficiency
in co-operating with service providers for print disabled people often makes
digitisation of printed documents more efficient than accessing e-documents.
Improvements in digitisation can considerably improve services, especially in
relation to meta data enrichment. Again we are in a field with strong convergences
of interests with other important players in the field: Libraries, archives
and museums started their efforts towards cultural heritage and services based
on electronic documents and electronic libraries. Especially this field which
is closely related to university based research and development made substantial
contributions to meta data sets and their standardisation be it in digitisation,
long time storage or workflow management for electronic cataloguing and digital
services. E-libraries and making cultural heritage available online have become
a question of client orientation, prestige and cost effectiveness. A growing
number of initiatives around the world pushes digitisation forward. These initiatives
present several important sets of meta data which are on the way to become standards.
As several studies show [Miesenberger, 01] meta data work uses more than 30%
of the digitisation resources. The EU funded project meta-e [meta-e, 02] in
which i3s3 takes part concentrates on making the digitisation process and thereby
the automatic or supported enrichment with metadata easier. The meta-e engine
is designed as a comprehensive software package where all steps necessary for
the digital conversion (re-formatting) of printed material (books, journals)
can be conducted by a well trained end-user. The input will be scanned (still)
page images, the output will be an "archival information package".
The functionality of the software will include:
image creation (scanning, importing),
image enhancement and pre-processing,
importing descriptive metadata (MARC21) from electronic library catalogues,
OCR-processing,
creating technical and administrative metadata,
extracting structural metadata with strong automation support,
organising permanent quality control on all levels and stages and
carrying out the digitisation process either in a single or multi-user workflow environment.
The greatest progress will be made by introducing layout and document analyseis as key technologies for structural and partly descriptive metadata capturing. A high amount of the typical "keying work", e.g. the ordering of text divisions such as chapters, sub-chapters or the linking of articles within a periodical will be taken over by the METAe engine. Page numbers, headlines, footnotes, graphs and caption lines are promising candidates for automatic processing as well. Different output formats like HTML, XHTML, XML, are supported. A OCR for "Fraktur" fonts which are used in old Europe literature will be developed. A XML full text search engine will be developed.
Document management, e-catalogues and e-libraries
As outlined a better workflow management at publisher's side would help to
increase the number of books accessible for print disabled people. There is
also a need to improve the workflow at service providers side to be more efficient
according to the estimations made at the beginning.
The TESTLAB project (Testing Systems using Telematics for Library Access for
Blind and visually handicapped readers) addressed the issue in mid 90ies by
establishing a central catalogue that covers all literature available in alternative
formats (Braille print, audio cassette, digital text, large print) in the German
speaking area. This novel information system not only enabled visually impaired
users to search, but is also a first version for workflow management at / between
service providers and clients. The catalogue proved to be a useful tool for
the organisation and co-operation in the transcription and support area. Today
a so called "meta catalogue" for the German speaking area is developed
to integrate other existing catalogues which were established the last years.
[Miesenberger, 99]
First experiences with the catalogue and the co-operation with more than 20
service providers showed that there is a demand for a more efficient workflow
management based on catalogue data to manage the co-operation between all stake
holders (clients, authors, publishers, financing organisations, service providers).
Therefore the TESTLAB work led to the Austrian Literature Online (ALO) [ALO,
02; Miesenberger, 01] project. "ALO" is a virtual library for presentation
and preservation purposes of documents. This system and the documents handled
are designed according to the needs of print disabled people. ALO gives access
to documents via the Internet in three different formats:
Facsimile
Uncorrected Full Text
Corrected Full Text.
The system is implemented in Java. A Java tool handles requests using Remote
Method Invocation (RMI) and sends back results in XML files. First a MOAII file
is loaded and coded in XML providing further links to facsimiles and the TEI
encoded text and strucutre. MOAII, TEI and facsimiles files are stored in a
file system. The database handles a list of names and links to the physical
elements in a file system. This slows the system down but makes preservation
and management of documents easier in the long run.
The user interface provides three tools to search for books: full text search,
metadata search and list of books. For all presentation functionalities servlets
are employed using XQL-queries and providing XML files and XSL style sheets.
Pages can be accessed with a certain page number. Buttons enable browsing a
document. For reading the whole document or defined parts of a document a PDF
or text file can be downloaded. Book-on-Demand gives access to cheap reprints.
The interfaces employs skin technology to optimize usability for users with
disabilities.
These days a new and professional version of ALO goes online. ALO is also a
typical application of the meta-e software. Meta-e will be part of the software
package for digitisation and e-library management. Further on the work concentrates
on the integration of a copyright management system (today only copyright free
documents are handled), a workflow management system and other tools to support
the work of libraries and service providers, e.g. "Braille Print on Demand"
should allow users to get access on embossed paper in a reasonable time scale.
The system itself is now used and tested in the EU funded project books2you
[Miesenberger, 01] which is a distance library loan system based on digitisation
and integration into an e-library.
Several other projects should be mentioned like BrailleNet [BrailleNet, 02]
here in France developing and employing similar tools and working in similar
areas. The importance of international co-operation in the field should also
be underlined.
Networking: Co-operation and exchange to put things into practice
The small size of the target group at local level on the one side and the complexity
of a full service provision on the other side asks for service provider units
of a certain size covering a big area or for a network of distributes smaller
centres contributing and benefiting from co-operation. i3s3 is and example of
such a network of small centres with a variety of different competences offering
print disabled students access to a full scaled service at local level. i3s3
is an Austrian wide institute where 5 universities co-operate. It is planed
that all Austrian universities take part the next years to give all print disabled
students in Austria access to a comprehensive service for developing the skills
needed for studying and doing research. Each university would not be willing
to establish a full service due to the small size of the target group. On the
other hand central service at one or two universities would prescribe the possibilities
to choose what and where to study. As an Austrian wide institute this form of
organisation should help to overcome the estimations made at the beginning and
to offer equal opportunities to all print disabled students.
Beside services like access to study materials, training in IT, social skills,
preparing for university, job integration and others i3s3 is a standard research
and teaching institute focused on ICT and AT. Research, project and development
activities are oriented towards this service provision as outlined above. This
co-operation is based on the possibilities of using the tools described above.
We think that ICT will be the tool in the future to enable full scaled services
at local level in an efficient and economic way. To facilitate networks and
networks of networks is a again a major field for research and development.
[ALO, 02] www.literature.at
[Braillenet, 02] http://www.braillenet.jussieu.fr/
[DAISY, 00] www.daisy.org
[EBU, 02] http://www.euroblind.org/fichiersGB/wg_copy.htm#comment
[Edwards, 95] Edwards, A.: Extra-Ordinary Human-Computer Interaction; Interfaces
for Users with Disabilities, Cambridge Series on Human-Computer Interaction,
Cambridge University Press, Cambridge 1995
[Fogg, 99] Fogg, B.: Persuasive Computers: Perspectives and Research Directions,
in: CHI 98, 18 - 23. April, papers 225 - 232
[Karshmer, 01 Karshmer, A., Gupta, G., Pontelli, E., Guo, H., Miesenberger,
K.: The Development of a Tool ti enhance communications between blind and sighted
mathematicians, students, and teachers: A Global Translation Appliance, in:
Stephanidis, C. (ed.): Universal Access In HCI - Towards and Information Society
for All, Lawrence Erlbaum, London 2001
[Knuth, 83] Donald Erwin Knuth and Duane Robert Bibby. The T E Xbook. ADDISON-WESLEY,
Reading, Mas., 1983.
[meta-e, 02] http://meta-e.uibk.ac.at/
[Miesenberger, 99] Miesenberger, K., Köttstorfer, M., Stöger, B.:
From Library Catalogue to Document Management for Print Disabled Users, in:
Bühler, Ch., Knops, H. (ed.): Assistive Technology on the Threshold of
the New Millenium, S. 600ff, IOS Press, Amsterdam 1999
[Miesenberger, 01] Miesenberger, K.: Convergence in Electronic Libraries, Cultural
Heritage and Service Provision for Print Disabled People: Austrian Literature
Online, in: Marincek, C., Bühler, Ch., Knops, H., Andrich, R. (ed.): Assistive
Technology - Added Value to the Quality of Life , Ljubljana, IOS Press, Amsterdam
2001
[Techshare, 01] http://www.rnib.org.uk/techshare/
[Wesley, 00] Wesley, T., Bormans, G., Engelen, J.: SEDODEL: Technical solutions
to the copyright barrier for widespread electronic information, in: Vollmer,
R., Wagner, R.: Computers Helping People with Special Needs; ICCHP 2000, OCG,
Vienna 2000
Reférences