>Perhaps this is only a short term need, as publishers in some golden future
may realise that including a digital version in every academic book will be
advantageous for ALL users?!<
What a lovely thought. Here's hoping...
And yes, well done Paul.
Phil Teare,
Owner,
Read-e
Curriculum Online Registered Content Provider,
Extraordinary solutions for extraordinary people
http://www.Read-e.com
0800 8496760 (UK) or 01144 208 4452871 (US)
----- Original Message -----
From: "Judith Stansfield" <[log in to unmask]>
To: <[log in to unmask]>
Sent: Thursday, November 03, 2005 11:26 AM
Subject: Re: [DIS-FORUM] Update on electronic copies
> Hello Paul
> You seem to be doing a brilliant job and getting success for visually
> impaired and blind readers - all power to your elbow!
> If the technology is available for these students, why should it not also
> be available for those who are 'word blind' ie dyslexic, or those whose
> sight is not sufficiently poor to qualify as visually impaired, but
> nonetheless makes reading long texts an arduous task?
>
> I can appreciate the publishers fears about copyright, but surely it is
> not beyond the technical wizards skills to encrypt the text or do
> something brilliantly techie to stop it being copied and/or make it only
> readable by the named student?
>
> Perhaps this is only a short term need, as publishers in some golden
> future may realise that including a digital version in every academic book
> will be advantageous for ALL users?!
> Cheers
> Judith
> ~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~
> Judith Stansfield
> SEN ICT Consultant
> NASEN ICT Group
> http://stass.web.onyxnet.co.uk/
> Farm Cottage, 24 East Road, Melsonby, Richmond DL10 5NF
> 01325 718139 mob 0799 0572 365
> ~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~
> ----- Original Message -----
> From: "Paul Jarman" <[log in to unmask]>
> To: <[log in to unmask]>
> Sent: Wednesday, November 02, 2005 7:33 PM
> Subject: Re: Update on electronic copies
>
>
>> At last, something to appease my wrath! I was determined to write last
>> week and ask why Disforum was turning into a "let's bash the publisher"
>> website, but I had more jobs on than David Blunkett, so didn't get
>> around to it. Coincidentally, just when the discussion was raging at
>> its height, I suddenly discovered that one of my visually-impaired
>> students needed a massive book on the First World War in just one week's
>> time for a post-graduate seminar. I contacted the publishers, Cassell
>> (a fairly small London firm) last Monday afternoon at about 3 to explain
>> what I needed and why. Like most publishers one contacts, they had
>> never come across the situation before, but what was the result of my
>> call? The entire book was with me by e-mail by 10 A.M. on Tuesday
>> morning--not even 24 hours. Back in the summer I wanted a book from
>> Alan Sutton Publishers in Stroud, again, a fairly small outfit, but
>> publisher of some magnificent titles. This one was for my own research
>> (totally blind myself, by the way). I think it took the woman at Sutton
>> about 48 hours to get this one to me electronically. And this, in my
>> experience, is the norm.
>>
>> So what am I doing right? Is it that I'm just particularly charming or
>> extremely good at my job? Well, I'd like to think both, but I think
>> that there are three key issues here. Firstly, I'm not absolutely
>> obsessed with disability legislation, and consequently don't go in with
>> all guns a-blazing. Nothing is more calculated to alienate and achieve
>> completely the opposite effect than to start a dialogue with a publisher
>> from the perspective of: "do you know that under the god-knows-what act
>> of god-knows-when you are obliged ..." That would certainly be enough
>> to make me think that I might suddenly have accidentally lost the
>> relevant electronic files, wouldn't it you? Legislation is a fantastic
>> weapon against absolute intransigence, and I've wielded it myself only a
>> couple of years ago to obtain considerable compensation from an Indian
>> restaurant owner who refused entry for my guide dog into his
>> establishment. In my experience however, publishers are anything but
>> intransigent. This was shown, I think, by the number of big names who
>> sent reps to the conference to discuss the obtaining of e-books for the
>> blind at the British Library earlier this year. According to my
>> records, I've approached 7 publishers for e-versions of their books
>> since September of last year, and 6 of them have come up with the goods
>> in fairly quick time. In addition to the two small ones mentioned
>> above, I've had great relations with bigger names like OUP and
>> Cavendish. By all means let's strive for some better legislation to
>> back up our case with those publishers who are quite determined never to
>> play ball, but, as with so many issues now it seems, can we stop making
>> the DDA stand for "dismissing dialogue absolutely".
>>
>> Secondly, perhaps it's because I'm also a part-time academic as well as
>> working in the field of disability that I am sympathetic to the
>> publishers' concerns, and do everything in my power to ease those
>> concerns. I'm hopefully about to strike a contract for my own book, and
>> I can tell you now that if I thought that the publisher would one day be
>> spraying it around electronically in the public domain, I would be
>> absolutely furious. Being an academic work you can be sure that I'll
>> get sod all financially for it anyway, without giving away free copies
>> to one and all. What I'm asking is, how much effort are you all putting
>> in to explain precisely to the publisher just where this electronic copy
>> is going to end up? How much time are you investing in reassuring the
>> publisher that their property--for that's what it is--is safe? Are you
>> making it fundamentally clear that if, in a year's time for example, a
>> mysterious copy suddenly starts materialising on the web or something,
>> you will be among the first to help with investigating whether your
>> student was responsible? Okay, this is deliberately being drastic, but
>> you know what I'm getting at. Try and keep in mind that this is
>> some-one's hard work, it's not just shareware.
>>
>> Thirdly, how are you approaching these publishers? I'm asking this
>> because another obsession, along with legislation, is e-mail. In my
>> experience, forget it! Pick up the phone and make personal contact.
>> Even in the 21st century you might be surprised to learn that there are
>> plenty of people who prefer to get a feel for the person they are
>> dealing with, especially when there is nothing in it for them. The
>> other advantage of this is that you can be fairly sure that you will
>> reach the individual you really need; the person who really does have
>> access to the electronic files etc. If they can't tell you who that is
>> on the switchboard, persist with all departments you are put through to
>> until you get the right person. This is just old-fashioned telesales
>> technique. An airy-fairy e-mail "to whom it may concern" can easily
>> (and probably will) be ignored. More importantly even, if it does
>> happen to reach the right person, unless you have written a great deal
>> about why you really need this book, he/she will probably be more
>> suspicious than willing to help. Believe me, "dear sir/madam, I need
>> this copy of your book electronically for a visually-impaired student",
>> is almost certainly going to get you nowhere if it is addressed to a
>> publisher who doesn't know anything about visually-impaired students,
>> the way the education market now is, SENDA, and all other related
>> issues. It really is the equivalent of all these e-mails that one gets
>> asking whether you would mind some nice individual in Zimbabwe placing
>> 10 million dollars in your personal bank account. Your request might be
>> more genuine, and you've probably got your badge of approval on the
>> bottom of your e-mail, but I'm not convinced that this counts for much.
>> My advice then is, at the intial stage anyway, pick up the phone and
>> talk to them. Publishers don't usually have two heads, any more than
>> blind people do.
>>
>> One thing I can almost say for certain: at sometime over the next year
>> or so I am bound to come into contact with an intransigent publisher who
>> just doesn't give a damn, and doesn't even want to hear what I've got to
>> say. Then I'll be tempted to put a bit of the old legal pressure on
>> perhaps, just as one occasionally has to in other walks of life. On the
>> whole however, this would be so unusual in my experience, that I'm
>> simply not prepared to sit quiet and see all (even most) publishers
>> painted in the kind of colours that they have been on this forum of
>> late. I obtained my first ever electronic book from a publisher (Harper
>> Collins) way back in 1998. I had been given it to review for "The
>> Independent", and the editor had given me a very short
>> deadline--especially given that the quality of scanning in those days
>> was so dreadful that one could hardly read the results anyway. I was
>> also just about to go on holiday, so was left with about four days to
>> read the book, write the review and get it back to the Indy. A call to
>> Collins got me the book in the same afternoon--admittedly in Mac format,
>> which was, in those days, a bit of a sod to convert, but still better
>> than scanning--and I guess I've never looked back since. It was a
>> memorable moment for me because I realised that, as a blind book
>> reviewer for various publications, life really was about to get a lot
>> better, and so it has proved.
>>
>> If anyone is interested in my running a workshop on how to obtain
>> e-books from publishers, let me know!!! I have to say in advance though
>> that the workshop would simply be entitled something like "common sense
>> and good manners", since that's all it amounts to in essence. "Experto
>> credite", as Virgil says.
>>
>> Paul Jar man,
>> Learning Development Officer for Students with Disabilities, 400
>> Chemistry Building, Queen Mary College, University of London, Mile End
>> Road, LONDON. E1 INNS
>> Tel.: +44 (0)20 7882-3237
>> 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 Baxter, Chris
>> Sent: 02 November 2005 09:57
>> To: [log in to unmask]
>> Subject: Update on electronic copies
>>
>>
>> Having bemoaned how difficult it was we have had some more success with
>> Pearson and other publishers, although not all books requested are
>> avaible a fair few are, so I wanted to let everyone know this in
>> fairness!
>>
>>
>> Chris Baxter
>> Disability Service Co-ordinator
>> The Nottingham Trent University
>> Burton Street
>> Nottingham
>> NG1 4BU
>>
>> 0115 8486163 voice and minicom
>>
>> [log in to unmask]
>> www.ntu.ac.uk/sss/disability/index.html
>> [log in to unmask]
>>
>>
>>
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