Tuesday, September 9, 2008

Re: Audio book resources for Upper School libraries

I happen to be working on just such a project. http://www.cucat.org/library/
This is still a very experimental service but has an extensive
collection of text which can be produced into audio format upon request.

With approval of a doctor your dyslexic student would qualify for two
services which offer free audio books (what we the blind and dyslexic
call talking books) services.

The first is the national Library Services for the Blind and
Physically handicapped. www.loc.gov/nls/
This service provides free general reading material and has a really
big collection they have done over the years. This is a exception
service and even the postage is free.

Second is Recording for the Blind and Dyslexic http;??www.rfbd.org/
They can supply textbooks and other similar types of material. There
is a modest fee to join. Schools can also join as well.


You will also want to know about DAISY digital talking books. http://www.daisy.org
DAISY is an international standard for digital talking books used by
the blind and, in your case, dyslexics but may be useful for anyone.
Daisy has many advantages over other audio book format not the least
of which is that you can navigate to places in the book. So if a
teacher says to read chapters 4, 5, and 10 of a book the student can
jump to those chapters. Page numbers are also supported as well as
bookmarking. In addition you can read a book. stop go to another and
then return to where you left off in the first later.

There are both hardware and software DAISY playback devices. The
VictorReader Stream is of particular not as it can also read text
files and files from Bookshare.org and NIMAS files as well.

I would be happy to discuss this with anyone who is interested.

Greg Kearney
Curtin University Centre for Accessible Technology
307-577-2473 US number

On Sep 9, 2008, at 12:14 PM, Emily S. Auerswald wrote:

> Hello all,
>
> I am investigating different ways by which we might provide audio
> book content for our students, either in physical form or digital.
> We offer both a standard curriculum and a small parallel program,
> which addresses the needs of our students with learning
> differences. I'd like to offer as many of their texts as possible
> in audio form.
>
> At present, we're offering books on CD, and I've recently purchased
> a PlayAway to test "market" (but haven't rolled it out yet!). It
> seems like kids are bringing the CDs home, ripping them, and loading
> them onto their iPods. Are folks sticking with this form of audio
> resources, or is anyone doing downloads from audible.com or
> subscribing to netLibrary's audio module? Other suggestions that
> are fairly straightforward to use, and also cost-effective?
>
> Many thanks.
>
> __________________________________________
> Emily S. Auerswald
> Upper School Librarian
> Indian Creek School
> 1130 Anne Chambers Way
> Crownsville, MD 21032
> eauerswald@indiancreekschool.com
>
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[ For info on ISED-L see http://www.gds.org/ISED-L ]
Submissions to ISED-L are released under a creative commons, attribution, non-commercial, share-alike license.
RSS Feed, http://listserv.syr.edu/scripts/wa.exe?RSS&L=ISED-L