A $10,000 grant from ALA will go to create a project called “E-Books Open Up the World of Print to Visually Impaired Readers.”
The one-year effort will help determine how e-books can aid the blind, visually impaired, the dyslexic and the physically challenged–a topic thoroughly worth exploring, since e-books can help special-needs people even more than the population at large.
Coordinating the project for the Mid Illinois Talking Book Center will be Tom Peters of TAP Information Services. He’ll work with staff from the center (especially Lori Bell, another e-book-hip librarian) as well as OverDrive, the distributor-retailer which is fast making a name for itself with attractive library-related sites for e-books, such as the collaboration with the Cleveland Public Library. Check out the fine work that OverDrive and partners are already doing on the Web for the Illinois project for the print-impaired.
Significantly, Tom coauthored a book on e-book usability, and he and Lori have engaged in earlier studies on e-books for the sighted. We need more efforts like this. E-books have their share of myths floating about, and there is no substitute for actual hands-on work.
The full name of the award is the ALA SIRSI Library Leader in Technology Grant. A 24K gold-framed citation be given at American Library Association Conference in Orlando on June 29 at 5:45 p.m.
More details at The Hand Held Librarian. Also see information from the project’s Web site.
Memo to software vendors, especially Mobipocket: If approached by the MITBC project, please give ’em your full cooperation. Ultimately, of course, I hope that a standard XML-based format will be in use.
