Hi rhun,

Very simple answer: it can't!  I'm writing from plenty of experience here.
I am totally blind myself and have been specialising in the field of
late-eighteenth-century manuscripts for many years now, as I am trying to
finish a doctoral thesis which entirely revolves around hand-written MSS.
From the 1790s.  In addition, however, part of my thesis also necessitates
working with printed fonts from the latter 1500s and early 1600s, as I'm
examining the earliest references in English to Medieval Welsh history.  As
far as I was aware, I am the only totally blind individual to have battled
with these kind of complexities, the enormity of which I just can't
over-exaggerate.  This is exactly why I just get so totally fed-up and
irritated when I hear "professionals" talking endlessly about how
developments in scanning and OCR IT have just about cracked the problems of
access to printed material for the visually impaired.  Such a premis is
based entirely upon the assumption that all blind individuals must be
working with post-nineteenth-century printed books which can be borrowed
from libraries and scanned without any prohibitive regulations.  Well, there
happens to be an awful lot of printed material that happened prior to the
twentieth century, and an awful lot of professional academics working in
such historical fields.  Sadly, however, these academics never seem to
include visually-impaired historians, probably for precisely the reasons
that you have outlined.

To begin with, OCR packages don't recognise hand-writing, so manuscripts are
out.  Secondly, even supposing that they did, these manuscripts are far too
precious ever to be subjected to the kind of light that scanners produce.
As for the pre-nineteenth-century fonts, one of the main problems is, of
course, that there was no letter equivalent to the modern s, but only the
long s, which is very hard to distinguish from an f.  In addition, prior to
the seventeenth century, most Ws were written as Vs, and several printed
texts also retained a kind of Anglo-Saxon thorn and yog.  Even this is
irrelevant however, as no library in its right mind would allow a text of
such age to be placed on a scanner, or even brushed over with a standard
hand scanner of the kind that would be available at the cheaper end of the
market.

So how have I coped hitherto?  The good old-fashioned way: by using the
human reader--or hundreds of them rather.  It's time-consuming, hard work
and often VERY frustrating, but I have entirely failed to find even a
remotely adequate alternative for serious research at the highest level.  It
must have paid some dividends, as, last year, I published a ground-breaking
article in my field which redated a long-misdated British Library
Manuscript, and my redating now seems to have been accepted by other
critics.  It took several years of working on the document with sighted
readers to reach my conclusions though, so it is hardly a speedy
methodology.

Sorry I couldn't be more positive.  If you want to talk to me off list,
you'll find my direct phone number below.  However, I'm off on three months
sabbatical research leave from Wednesday.

Paul.


Paul Jarman,
Disability Support Officer,
2.39 Francis Bancroft Building,
Queen Mary, University of London,
Mile End Road,
LONDON.  E1 4NS
Tel.: +44 (0)20 7882-2757,
Fax: +44 (0)20 7882-5223,
E-Mail: [log in to unmask] 
-----Original Message-----
From: Discussion list for disabled students and their support staff.
[mailto:[log in to unmask]] On Behalf Of Rhun Ap Harri [rha]
Sent: 01 June 2007 15:45
To: [log in to unmask]
Subject: Late medieval manuscripts

Has anyone any solution please?

How can late medieval manuscript and early modern font be made accessible to
a visually impaired person - excluding any form of magnification or tactile
imaging.

Any information welcome.



-------------------------------------------
Rhun ap Harri
Swyddog Anabledd PCA/UWA Disability Officer. 
Prifysgol Cymru Aberystwyth University of Wales.
Ystafell G7/Room G7 Cledwyn Building.
Campws Penglais Campus. 
Aberystwyth Ceredigion SY23 3DD.
Ffôn: / Tel:01970 628537.
Ffacs: / Fax: 01970 621759.
www.aber.ac.uk/welfare-disability
-------------------------------------------