FW: USA: Online book-sharing service for the blind borrows a page from Napster

[Janina Sajka]

Forget OpenBook and K1000 and all that Windows <expletive deleted> stuff, 
use scanimage and gocr from the command line. It works.


On Fri, 15 Mar 2002, Ann Parsons wrote:

> Hi all,
> 
> Gena, a couple of misconceptions here.  First, one doesn't have to buy
> the book in order to scan it.  One can request the book from a regular
> library and scan it.  As for the cost of K1000 or Ruby, yes, these do
> cost, and it is a shame that such things have to cost as much as they
> do.  
> 
> There are scholarships available through various organizations,
> apparently.    I think what they are trying to do is to get Lions or
> something similar to donate the money so that folks who can not afford
> the fee will be able to do so.    I think they are also looking for
> organizations who want to scan books.  
> 
> I know it looks like things are sort of skewed, and I know they need
> to do more about getting access via Lynx and that, but the idea is
> sound.  
> 
> I'm not sure what formats they require.  I do know that there are
> strict rules about not submitting stuff that has been scanned for you,
> like text books and all, or propriatary materials from a university.
> They're working on all this.  It's only a couple of weeks old.
> They'll work out the kinks.
> 
> Ann P.
> 
> 

-- 
	
				Janina Sajka, Director
				Technology Research and Development
				Governmental Relations Group
				American Foundation for the Blind (AFB)

Email: janina at afb.net		Phone: (202) 408-8175

Chair, Accessibility SIG
Open Electronic Book Forum (OEBF)
http://www.openebook.org