ACCESS, Adobe, Barnes & Noble, Copia, Google, Kobo/Rakuten, O’Reilly, Samsung, Sony, others support project to advance universal digital publishing format New York, NY, February 13, 2012 -The International Digital Publishing Forum (IDPF) today announced the Readium Project, a new open source initiative to develop a comprehensive reference implementation of the IDPF EPUB® 3 standard. This vision [...]

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Last week I spoke with Rachel Gut, the Outreach Service Manager at the Dayton Metro Library.  Rachel and her colleagues launched an eReader lending program for homebound patrons.  The program started due to the lack of large print titles.  Rachel offers an overview of the program, details on the readers, and suggestions for funding. Interview [...]

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The following are my notes from the presentation – Born accessible: making e-books fully inclusive from day one – held during the NISO- The E-Book Renaissance Part II:  Challenges and Opportunities.  Best efforts were made to ensure accuracy. Presenters: Larry Goldberg, Director, Media Access Group Director at WGBH Geoff Freed, Director of Technology Projects and Web [...]

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The Handheld Librarian 7 conference will be held virtually next Wednesday and Thursday, August 15th and 16th.  On day two, a 2-hour workshop on the state of the eReader is available. More information is below: State of the eReader:  This featured workshop will focus on the legal, ethical, and technical aspects of eReaders. The goal [...]

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Congratulations to Baker & Taylor! National Federation of the Blind Honors Baker & Taylor’s Axis 360 Digital Media Platform – Says company offers ‘industry-leading example’ in making digital media available with Axis 360 platform – CHARLOTTE, N.C. – July 25, 2012 – Baker & Taylor, Inc., the world’s largest distributor of digital and physical books, [...]

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Glad to see more vendors making accommodations for visually-impaired users.  From a Baker & Taylor press release: CHARLOTTE, N.C. – May 22, 2012 – Baker & Taylor, Inc., the world’s largest distributor of digital and physical books, today announced an important new release of its Axis 360 digital media platform that allows visually-impaired ebook users to have [...]

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Read this news on a Teleread post from last week.  Libraries who are lending eReaders, what are you doing to accommodate visually impaired patrons?  Are you purchasing audiobooks or another type of device that allows text-to-speech functionality? Is that an acceptable solution for the NFB, to have the same content but in a different format? [...]

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March 12, 2012 – Palo Alto, CA – Bookshare, the global leader in providing digital accessible books to people with print disabilities, today announced its 10th anniversary. Throughout the last ten years, Bookshare has been at the forefront of the digital book revolution, applying Silicon Valley technology to pioneer an innovative new approach to a [...]

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eReaders aren’t designed with accessibility in mind. Ken Petri, Director of the Web Accessibility Center at The Ohio State University, contributed a chapter about eBook accessibility to the forthcoming No Shelf Required 2:  Use and Management of Ebooks title from ALA Editions.  Due to the need for currency of this topic, Ken has posted some [...]

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No Shelf Required has been busy this past year exploring the many topics of eBooks and libraries.  Very soon, two new publications will be available from ALA Publishing which share the No Shelf Required name.  These new publications contain completely new content, expanding upon No Shelf Required: E-books in Libraries, ALA Editions, 2011. Details are [...]

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