• Skip to main content
  • Skip to secondary menu
  • Skip to primary sidebar
  • Skip to footer
  • About DNS
  • Subscribe to DNS
  • Advertise with DNS
  • Support DNS
  • Contact DNS

Disability News Service

the country's only news agency specialising in disability issues

  • Home
  • Independent Living
    • Arts, Culture and Sport
    • Crime
    • Education
    • Employment
    • Housing
    • Transport
  • Activism & Campaigning
  • Benefits & Poverty
  • Politics
  • Human Rights
You are here: Home / News Archive / Publishers’ signatures hold out hope for brighter e-book future

Publishers’ signatures hold out hope for brighter e-book future

By guest on 31st October 2010 Category: News Archive

Listen

UK publishers have signed an “exciting” new agreement that should make it easier for many disabled people to access electronic books.

The agreement recommends that all electronic books – e-books – should automatically allow “e-reader” machines to turn the text into speech, at least where there is no audio-book edition.

An increasing number of e-readers now offer a text-to-speech facility, with campaigners pushing manufacturers to offer such accessibility features “as standard”.

Publishers and campaigners said they hoped the “recommendation to publishers” would “open up as many titles as possible to people with print impairments”, such as dyslexia and visual impairments.

They said that many individual publishers already enable text-to-speech on their e-books – while e-readers are becoming increasingly affordable – but the new agreement would bring “a common base position for all publishers in the UK to achieve”.

The statement was agreed by The Right to Read Alliance – which campaigns for people with “print disabilities” to be able to read books at the same time as non-disabled people and without any extra charge – following negotiations with The Publishers Association, The Society of Authors and The Association of Authors Agents.

Fazilet Hadi, group director, inclusive society, for RNIB, an alliance member, said: “These developments have a profound significance for me and for thousands of other blind book lovers.

“They point to a future when blind children and adults can buy the same books, at the same time and price as their sighted friends.

“E-books with text-to-speech could really open up a world of reading to people who cannot read print, so I wholeheartedly welcome this recommendation: it is incredibly exciting.”

Victoria Barnsley, chief executive of HarperCollins and president of The Publishers Association, said the text-to-speech function on new e-readers “offers a huge opportunity” to people with print impairments.

She said the association was “proud to have the opportunity to take such a big step forward”.

12 October 2010

Share this post:

Share on TwitterShare on FacebookShare on WhatsAppShare on Reddit

Related

‘Muddled’ blue badge reforms ‘are to blame for renewal delays’
6th February 2015
UN debate will be reminder of true inclusive education
6th February 2015
IDS breaks pledge on PIP waiting-times, as tens of thousands still queue for months
30th January 2015

Primary Sidebar

Access

Latest Stories

DWP staff admit inflicting ‘psychological harm’ on claimants during coalition years

Government ‘treats disabled people with contempt’ by handing £2.4 million to charities

Legal threat to PM over lack of BSL interpreter in £2.6 million briefing room

Government faces legal action over ‘disrespectful’ strategy consultation

‘Vaccine passport’ scheme is ‘deeply troubling’, say disabled artists

DWP decision to resume face-to-face assessments ‘is too soon and too dangerous’

DWP admits number of disability employment advisers plunged during pandemic

DPOs call on minister to scrap ‘unfair’ SEN coronavirus measures

Government’s ‘shocking’ pandemic rights list of shame

Disabled student’s ‘five years of sheer hell’ at university

Advice and Information

DWP: The case for the prosecution

Readspeaker

Footer

The International Standard Serial Number for Disability News Service is: ISSN 2398-8924

  • Accessibility Statement
  • Privacy Policy
  • Site map
  • Facebook
  • Twitter

Copyright © 2021 Disability News Service

Site development by A Bright Clear Web