The DAISY Consortium has published a white paper encouraging the use of Born Accessible EPUB 3 files for corporate, government and university publications and documents. This important piece of work recognizes the work of the publishing industry who have embraced EPUB 3 as their format of choice for ebooks and digital publishing and focuses on how this same approach should be used for all types of digital content, both online and offline:
It is time for companies and organizations to consider adopting modern digital publishing standards for their document output. Reading documents digitally is the norm today and it is taking place on smartphones, tablets, and on computers….Wonderful for printing and ubiquitous, PDF can only be made accessible after time-consuming, expensive remediation has been completed.EPUB 3 provides the opportunity to significantly improve the accessibility of digital content for all readers, regardless of ability. Its many benefits include:
- EPUB 3 documents can be produced using existing document processes, negating the need for costly and time-consuming remediation processes.
- All modern word processors now support EPUB 3.
- There is a legal requirement for organizations to produce accessible documents
- Organizations can extend the reach and read-through of their documents
- EPUB 3 improves the reading experience for everyone. If it’s Born Digital, it should be Born Accessible
The Association of Learned & Professional Society Publishers (ALPSP) have announced today their list of finalists for the Innovation in Publishing Award 2020 and we are delighted to announce that the DAISY Consortium tool WordToEPUB has been shortlisted. This ground breaking new tool offers a free, simple and straightforward method of converting structured Word documents to valid and accessible EPUB files.
“Applications for the awards were open to any new development, product, service or project which is both innovative and of significant value to scholarly communication. The winners must demonstrate excellence in terms of originality, innovation, value to the community, utility and long-term viability.”
The winner of this exciting award will be announced in September and we would like to congratulate everyone involved in the development of WordToEPUB as well the other finalists who we are very proud to be shortlisted alongside.
Full details of the shortlist are available on the ALPSP Innovation Awards page
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The second Tactile Reading event, planned for next year in Oslo, has now been extended to add a pre-conference day of workshops and demonstrations of new technology on April 28th.
The call for abstracts for the main conference which runs April 29th-30th has been extended to June 14th.
Registration will open in September.
Read MoreWe are happy to announce that we’re scheduling webinars on accessible publishing and reading. This is in response to multiple challenges faced by conferences around the world due to Coronavirus, as well as feedback from the wider DAISY community expressing interest in online training resources.
These webinars will be:
- free of charge to anyone anywhere
- run for up to 1 hour
- have capacity for up to 500 participants to experience and interact with live
- archived for later viewing if you missed the live session
Learn more about our webinar series including details of the next 4 sessions.
If you have an accessible publishing presentation to propose delivering as part of this webinar series please contact us with the details.
Read MoreCongratulations to the winners of the Accessible Books Consortium International Excellence Awards who were announced yesterday.
The worthy winners are Macmillan Learning in the publisher category and Fondazione LIA for the initiative category. Both winners are applauded for their achievements in improving the accessibility of ebooks and other digital publications for people who are blind, visually impaired or otherwise print-disabled.
Nominees were judged on the criteria of outstanding leadership or achievements in improving the accessibility of ebooks or other digital publications for persons who are print disabled. In the past, winners have been announced at a much anticipated annual awards ceremony at the London Book Fair. Unfortunately, however, the London Book Fair was cancelled this year following the outbreak of the coronavirus in Europe and the winners were advised via email of this honour.
Read the full report on the ABC website
Read MoreWe are happy to announce that we’re scheduling several webinars on accessible publishing and reading. This is in response to multiple challenges faced by conferences around the world due to Coronavirus, as well as feedback from the wider DAISY community expressing interest in online training resources.
These webinars will be:
- free of charge to anyone anywhere
- run for up to 1 hour
- have capacity for up to 500 participants to experience and interact with live
- archived for later viewing if you missed the live session
Register your interest to receive details of the webinar schedule.
If you have an accessible publishing presentation to propose delivering as part of this webinar series please contact us with the details.
Read MoreThe shortlist for the 2020 ABC International Excellence Awards for Accessible Publishing have been announced and the winners will be presented at an awards ceremony on March 10, 2020 at the London Book Fair. There are two awards presented in this category and the finalists are:
Publishers Award
- Argentina—Ediciones Godot
- Canada—House of Anansi Press
- USA—Macmillan Learning
Initiative Award
- Italy—Fondazione LIA
- Lithuania—EIFL, Electronic Information for Libraries
- United Arab Emirates—Kalimat Foundation for Children Empowermen
Many congratulations to all the finalists who have worked so hard to improve the delivery accessible content to readers around the world. Further details about the accessibility awards can be found on the Accessible Books Consortium Website.
Full details of all the awards categories can be found at the Bookseller website and we look forward to announcing the winners here in March.
Read MoreThe call for abstracts is now open for the second Tactile Reading Conference, which will be held in Oslo, Norway 29-30 April 2021.
The conference will bring together:
- Practitioners, developers and innovators in the field of tactile reading
- Academics in various research areas
- Commercial companies
The conference will promote best practices and inspire new ideas for research, and get people together for future collaboration. Relevant topics include:
- The Neuroscience of Tactile Reading and Understanding
- An Inclusive Approach to Early Intervention in Kindergarten and School
- An Inclusive Approach to Braille and Literacy
- Tactile Graphics and 3D Material
- Tactile Reading and Universal Design
Practitioners and researchers are encouraged to submit an abstract for 20 or 40 minutes presentations. It is also possible to give a poster presentation. All presentations will be in English.
Further details are available at www.tactilereading.org
Deadline: May 15th 2020
We are delighted to announce the first full release of the Ace by DAISY App. Many publishing professionals are already familiar with the Ace command line tool for accessibility checking within EPUB workflows and this new desktop version builds on test version released a couple of months ago to make testing EPUB files from a desktop an even easier process.
Ace by DAISY helps to ensure EPUB content conforms with the EPUB Accessibility 1.0 specification, allowing all readers to access and enjoy your content irrespective of print disabilities or access requirements. The Ace App is designed to allow you to quickly test EPUB files through a familiar graphical user interface and highlight any issues which need to be addressed. Users will still need some understanding of the EPUB specification and accessibility requirements in order to resolve any problems found, but to make that process easier the Ace App is integrated with the DAISY Accessible Publishing Knowledge Base proving quick links to the relevant reference in this essential resource.
The Ace App is not intended to replace the command line tool, which remains the ideal solution for those wishing to test multiple documents or to integrate the testing process directly into production workflows. Technically the testing process taking place behind the scenes is identical on both the Ace by DAISY command line tool and the Ace App, so this is simply an easier way for some users to access the same process.
Get started by visiting the Ace App Github page for instructions on download and installation.
Read MoreDAISY Consortium is pleased to announce the test release of Obi, the popular open source navigable audio book creation tool. Obi produces books conforming to the accessible EPUB 3, DAISY 3 and DAISY 2.02 specifications.
Version 4.5 RC is the release candidate inviting feedback from experienced users of Obi.
It presents new and enhanced audio processing functionality to increase/decrease the volume, fade in, fade out, or normalize audio, and also incorporates the old functionality in the new audio processing interface.
Other enhancements include capability of adding comment to a Todo phrase for providing hint to the editors, ability to mark Todo at the exact time point in a phrase, option to view peak meter inside the main Obi window, option to use single key shortcuts for recording in the TOC view along with other improvements and bug fixes.
New Obi also comes with updated French language pack. Many thanks to BrailleNet for updating the translations.
Please visit Obi Release Notes page to learn more about the release and to download the installers.
For feedback, comments and bug reports please contact us via email: obi.feedback@gmail.com
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