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Electronic Books
Electronic Books are books created in an electronic/digital form, e.g. through the internet or on CD, DVD, etc. Since the electronic archive includes the book text it can be used to create Braille books, or by recording a voice on it, can be read by visually-impaired individuals. However, the demand to publishers for the simultaneous release of electronic books with printed books, doesn’t only come from the visually-impaired. The electronic books, which also include the recorded narration of the text, are beginning to be requested by a wider spectrum of the population as they enjoy listening to the text as well as reading it.
Digital Audio Books
The increasing demand of electronic books created the need for new standards. The use of digital technology paved the way for the next generation of audio books which would surpass the limitations of analog recording which make the user listen to the text in the order it was recorded without the ability to access directly things like certain pages, chapters, table of contents, etc.
Developing the Standards
Technologically oriented organizations had already started an etext service in one form or another and had learned about the strengths of this format over the analog formats and there already existed a wide variety of specifications for the etext products. It was 1995 when these pioneers founded the Digital Audio-based Information SYstem (DAISY) Consortium with the goal of developing the standards for the next generation of information technology for persons who are blind or print disabled, in a way that will combine the strengths of human narration embodied in the analog format with the strengths of evolving etext implementation. The DAISY 2.02 specification as it was revised in 2001, built on the internet standards of the W3C, uses XHTML, XML and SMIL (Synchronized Multimedia, Integration Language) and supports 6 types of Digital Talking Books
Types of DAISY books
- Full audio without any navigable structure
- Full audio with NCC (navigation control center) only. The structure provides both sequential and hierarchical navigation
- Full audio with NCC and partial text . The partial text compononents may occur where keyword searching and direct access to the text would be beneficial, e.g. index, glossary etc.
- Full audio and full text . This is a digital talking book with structure and complete text and audio synchronized.
- Full text and some audio . This is a DTB with structure, complete text and limited audio
- Text and no audio . This is a DTB containing an NCC and structured electronic text only. No audio is present. Suitable for use with speech synthesizer.
Lighthouse and DAISY
Lighthouse for the Blind follows the issues in the evolving area of digitally talking books. To be completely briefed on developments, it became a member of the Daisy Consortium in 1992 and reviews carefully the new generation of talking books.