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From: Dennis.Asher@p0.f626.n690.z3.fidonet.org (Dennis Asher)
Newsgroups: misc.handicap
Subject: Re: Books on disk?
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Date: 25 Jul 90 16:27:05 GMT
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Index Number: 9500

Dave Keenan wrote:

DJA>Does anyone know of a books-on-disk library or even just
DJA>individual books which have been scanned and OCRed so as to be
DJA>suitable for reading from a personal computer?
DJA>Is there someone willing to start such a library by soliciting
DJA>contributions? I imagine there could be copyright problems.

This is an area I am very interested and I am certain there would be
a market for some enterprising group (or several) to start production
of books on disk, not only for the visually impaired, but for anyone
with a physical disability which prevents them from turning the pages
of a standard publication. Page turners are are usefull but not portable
and a book or two on the hard disk of a laptop computer would be very
handy.

There are 2 possibilities:

Public Domain Classics: The text of any publication is free of copyright
50 years after it's first imprint date (or 50 years after the death of the
author, I'm not sure which. (If anyone knows the correct definition please
let me know). This means that any of the old classics can be typed or
scanned to disk (perhaps by volunteers) and distributed freely in the
public domain. If it is distributed as pure ascii code then it can be
displayed by any suitable viewing program.

Commercial production: This would involve negotiating with the copyright
holder of a publication for the rights to produce it in disk form. The
contents of the disk would then be subject to standard software copyright
(perhaps) and could be sold commercially. I am sure there would be
sufficient demand (worlwide) to make the a commercially viable option.
Perhaps we can get some feedback on ABLED.

Dennis Asher
Project Officer
Recreation Computing Project
Noah's Ark Toy Library and Resource Centre
Perth, AUSTRALIA

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