Science: Health: Eye: Blindness
Direct Adaptive Library Service   (+1)  [vote for, against]
for people who use adaptive technologies

People who use adaptive technologies (like screen readers or screen magnifiers) to access information on the internet dont need any more barriers in their way because they have enough to worry about with the incompatibility of different softwares and security systems. Library service to this group of people should be as direct as possible so that they have a little extra as possible to worry about. At present the download process from the National Library Service's Braille and Audio Reading Download system (BARD) involves "extracting" and "unzipping" and finding files in Microsoft's arcane "Windows Explorer" file management system which may seem like old hat to some of us but to people who are blind is preventative. Someone needs to hack together a streamlined download process and device so that adaptive technology users can phone in their library requirements and have them show up "magically" on a device that only has buttons for play, speed, tone, forward and backward a chapter.
-- JesusHChrist, Nov 23 2011

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