“LESS THAN 1% OF BOOKS ARE ACCESSIBLE TO THE BLIND”
Persons with visual impairments cannot read the standard print. They need the reading material (textbooks, magazines, newspapers, etc.) in alternative accessible formats like Braille, audiobook, large print, or accessible eBook. The reading material required by visually impaired persons is converted into accessible formats mainly by NGOs working for the blind, like IFB. The process of conversion of standard print material into accessible formats is time-consuming and expensive. Due to resource constraints, less than 1% of the published information is converted to accessible formats. The persons with visual impairments are facing a “book famine” – there is a dearth of books they can read. The situation is so grim that school students do not even get all their textbooks in a format they can read, let alone leisure reading books like stories and novels. The emergence of new alternative formats like DAISY & EPUB3 holds a lot of promise for the print-impaired community (anyone who cannot read standard print). Since these are digital books they are easy to duplicate and transmit. These formats contain features that provide a pleasant reading experience to people with print impairments. These formats have support for integrated audio, magnification, text-to-speech, image descriptions, and much more.