Alternate Formats 101

Tara Robertson, CAPER-BC, @tararobertsonHeidi Nygard, Access and Diversity, Crane

Library, UBC

Challenge of alternate formats

• Dispersed between disability services, libraries, stand alone production facilities, provincial production centres

• No real national catalogue of all alternate format productions

• No agreement on the various formats (e-text)• No standards on production

Definitions

• Alternate format• Types of print disabilities/perceptual

disabilities– Blindness– Visual impairment– Learning disability– Physical disability– Neurological disability– Other

Shared library values

• Access• Sharing• Value, reuse• Customer service• Protecting user rights

Canadian copyright act, Section 32

• Not copyright infringement to make an alternate format for a person with a perceptual disability if it’s not commercially available

• Exceptions: cinematographic works• Large print requires publisher permission

CAPER-BC

• Established in 1985• Funded to serve 20 post-secondary

institutions• 6 full time staff, 6-10 student workers• 1168 students, 3553 requests• 50% of materials are in trades

Crane Library

• Established in 1968 with donation of Charles Crane’s personal Braille collection [10,000 volumes]

• 3 Full time staff; 17 Student Production Assistants, 3 Student French Narrators, 70 Volunteer Narrators

• 80 clients between UBC-V/UBC-O, 446 requests.

Confused about which is the best format?

Image from David Goehring on Flickr

Accessible PDF

CAPER-BC• Chop and scan and

publisher files• Omnipage for OCR• Split into chapters

Crane Library• Publisher Files only • ABBYY FineReader for OCR• Split into chapters

E-text

CAPER-BC• .rtf, .doc• Edited by a person• Image descriptions, if

needed

Crane Library• .rtf• Edited by student assistants• Tables and image

description, if needed

mp3

CAPER-BC• Synthetic voice• Premium voices and

TextAloud• 1 file per page

Crane Library• Human voice (volunteers)• Sound forge• 1 file per page

Braille

CAPER-BC• Not funded to produce

Crane Library• Contract out to T-Base –

exams and syllabi• Lend/Borrow from Crane

collection or PRCVI

DAISY

CAPER-BC• Human voice (professionals)• For math, chemistry where

there’s lots of formulas

Crane Library• Don’t produce

Large Print

CAPER-BC• Rarely produce, usually

recommend PDF• Print from PDF

Crane Library• Exams• Online course content files

[PDF]

Math

CAPER-BC• Human voice DAISY• Will be coding MathML

using MathType

Crane Library• Audio narration• Experimenting with

MathType for exams• Braille [$18000]

Useful resources

• Email lists– Canaltform– DDSHE– Athen

• CSUN – for conference presentations• Twitter #a11y #accessibility

Thank you!

Tara RobertsonAccessibility LibrarianCAPER-BCtrobertson@langara.bc.ca@tararobertson

Heidi NygardAlternate Format Collection CoordinatorCrane Library, Access and Diversity, UBCheidi.nygard@ubc.ca