Oregon's special ed needs hit new high - OregonLive.com

Oregon's special ed needs hit new high - OregonLive.com

Interesting article. Oddly enough, the article on congressional earmarks didn't mention any special funds for special needs kids...

ALA | Mayo to present 2009 Dr. Jean E. Coleman Library Outreach Lecture

ALA | Mayo to present 2009 Dr. Jean E. Coleman Library Outreach Lecture

If you're coming to ALA, then by all means attend Kathy Mayo's talk on serving elders in libraries. It's sure to be great!

HumanWare and ReadHowYouWant Join Forces to Bring Books to Visually Impaired Readers

For Immediate Release

Contact:

Bradi Grebien-Samkow: bradi@readhowyouwant.com

503-922-0778

Contact:

Julien Larose: julien.larose@humanware.com

888-723-7273 x357

HumanWare and ReadHowYouWant Join Forces to Bring Books to Visually Impaired Readers

Sydney, Australia, March 11, 2009—HumanWare, the leader in assistive technologies for people with print disability, and digital publishing innovator ReadHowYouWant are partnering to help visually impaired readers discover the book reading device, and the format that’s right for their reading needs.

ReadHowYouWant offers thousands of books in accessible formats, including 24 pt. large print, braille, and DAISY files at www.readhowyouwant.com. HumanWare provides playback devices for readers who are blind or have low vision to use with braille and DAISY files at www.humanware.com. “From the moment it appeared on the market, the Victor Reader Stream has proven itself to be the greatest portable DAISY book reading device ever. Today we are proud to team up with Read How You Want. We invite all readers to take a look at the selection of books they have to offer. Reading should always be an enjoyable experience. We hope that our customers will regularly visit our new website where they will be able to check out new DAISY book releases. Pass the word around!” says HumanWare CEO Gilles Pepin.

Beginning in April, readers will be able to go to the HumanWare website to download free, first chapters of 20 bestselling ReadHowYouWant titles each month as part of the “Free Chapter Download Program.” The free, first chapters come from popular books from a variety of well-known publishers of adult and young adult books, including Wiley, Random House Australia, Murdoch Books, and Weekly Reader. The first month’s selected titles will include such best sellers as, The Power of Now by Eckhart Tolle (New World Library), “Praise Song for the Day,” the inauguration poem by Elizabeth Alexander (Graywolf Press), and Leadership and Self-Deception by the Arbinger Institute (Berrett-Kohler), as well as children’s and young adult titles to include, How to Take the GRRRR Out of Anger by Marjorie Lisovskis and Elizabeth Verdick (Free Spirit Publishing), and Extreme Habitats: Mountain Survival by Susie Hodge (Weekly Reader). After enjoying the complimentary first chapter, readers may visit ReadHowYouWant’s website at www.readhowyouwant.com to purchase the entire file.

ReadHowYouWant will be demoing HumanWare’s devices at book industry events such as the Frankfurt Book Fair, the London Book Fair, and Book Expo America. Similarly, HumanWare will present braille and DAISY files from ReadHowYouWant’s collection on their players at technology industry shows, including CSUN and ATIA (Assistive Technologies Industry Association) conferences.

ReadHowYouWant produces Grade 2 contracted braille files, and has developed a house style that supports automated transcription while maintaining accuracy. These files may be read with a refreshable electronic braille display such as the Humanware Braillenote or Brailliant or embossed to make traditional braille books. Words are not split at line ends to make reading easier, particularly for newer braille readers.

About HumanWare

HumanWare is the global leader in assistive technologies for vision, including products for the blind and visually impaired. HumanWare's products include BrailleNote, the leading productivity device for blind people in education, in business and in their personal lives; the Victor Reader product line, the world's leading digital talking book players; and myReader2, the new version of HumanWare's unique "auto-reader" for people with low vision. For more information visit www.humanware.com

About ReadHowYouWant

ReadHowYouWant Pty Ltd and its R&D parent company, Accessible Publishing Systems Pty Ltd are both Sydney, Australia-based privately held companies founded in 2004 by electronic publishing pioneers Christopher Stephen and Greg Duncan. When Chris’s sister, who suffers from MS, developed difficulty reading, they began experimenting to determine whether people with reading difficulties could benefit from changing the text format.

After more than four years of testing, ReadHowYouWant has successfully developed award-winning conversion technology that reformats existing books into the widest selection of on-demand, alternative format editions on the market today. Each edition has been optimized for maximum readability. The company’s goals are to make reading easier and more enjoyable by delivering formats that suit the reader and to give people with reading difficulties access to books in the formats of their choice—at an affordable price, and as soon as the book is published. For more information visit www.readhowyouwant.com.

ReadHowYouWant Partners with Random House Australia and Murdoch Books

For Immediate Release

Contact:

Bradi Grebien-Samkow: bradi@readhowyouwant.com

+1-503-922-0778 U.S.

Large Print and Accessible Book Publisher ReadHowYouWant Partners with Leading Publishers to Create Books for Visually Impaired Readers

Sydney, Australia, March 4, 2009—ReadHowYouWant, a new leader in large print, print-on-demand books, has begun partnering with Random House Australia and Murdoch Books to create accessible editions of their best-selling titles. ReadHowYouWant also announced the opening of their Australian and New Zealand website at www.readhowyouwant.com/australia. The Sydney-based company’s other Australian publishing partners include Simon and Schuster Australia, Michelle Anderson Publishing, Interactive Publications, Little Hare Books, and Insight Publications.

ReadHowYouWant Pty Ltd and its R&D parent company, Accessible Publishing Pty Ltd, are both Sydney, Australia-based privately held companies co-founded by electronic publishing pioneers Christopher Stephen and Greg Duncan. ReadHowYouWant’s award-winning conversion technology reformats existing books into high-quality alternative formats including, 16 to 24 point EasyRead large print, braille, e-books, and DAISY—a new talking book format that produces audio along with the written text.

Mel Cox, Head of Publishing Services at Random House Australia says, “We’re really excited to be working with ReadHowYouWant. This innovative technology assists those who have been previously unable to enjoy printed books. Random House Australia is delighted that our authors will now be available in more accessible formats for the enjoyment of all readers.” Random House Australia is part of the Random House Group, one of the largest publishing houses in the world. ReadHowYouWant will be working with Random House Australia on creating accessible formats of their recent front list titles, including three best-selling memoirs, Holy Cow, Salvation Creek, and Conviction of the Innocent.

ReadHowYouWant will be working with Murdoch Book’s imprint, Pier 9, which publishes an eclectic mix of travel, memoir, biography, popular history, and strong human-interest stories. "Murdoch Books is delighted to be able to make their books accessible to a broader range of people who would have previously been unable to read these titles in a standard format,” says Juliet Rogers, CEO of Murdoch Books.

ReadHowYouWant works with print-on-demand printer SOS print + media of Alexandria, NSW to print and ship books to readers. As well, ReadHowYouWant is working with James Bennett—Australia’s leading library supplier—to bring books to libraries in Australia and New Zealand.

In 2007, using an export grant from the Australian government to partly fund its expansion, ReadHowYouWant brought its services to the United States, and has begun partnering with such U.S. publishers as Wiley, Career Press, Barrett-Koehler, Free Spirit, and Rosen. Some best-selling titles from American publishers now available to Australian readers include, Stillness Speaks by Eckhart Tolle, Leadership and Self-Deception by The Arbinger Institute, Confessions of an Economic Hit Man by John Perkins, and Being Peace by Thich Nhat Hanh. ReadHowYouWant’s online bookshop contains over 2,000 titles available in DAISY or braille files at www.readhowyouwant.com/australia.

“ReadHowYouWant’s goals are to make reading easier and more enjoyable by delivering formats that suit the reader, and to give people with reading difficulties access to books in the formats of their choice at an affordable price, and as soon as the book is published,” says ReadHowYouWant’s founder Christopher Stephen. For more information visit www.readhowyouwant.com/australia. To reach Mark Tanner, Publisher Relations Manager in our Sydney office, email mtanner@readhowyouwant.com or call +61 421 544 707.

“…the prescient folks at ReadHowYouWant [who] offer unabridged editions and [who] have a fine understanding of the fact that one size doesn’t fit all visually impaired readers. Brilliantly, they offer a variety of fonts and font sizes.”

—Sarah F. Gold, Publishers Weekly

Tiresias LPfont - A typeface for large print publications

Tiresias LPfont - A typeface for large print publications

Here is a fascinating summary of research into font sizes and weights as they relate to the preferences of visually impaired readers. Those of us who vision is not impaired usually prefer a non-bold font, whereas readers whose vision is impaired prefer a bold font. This also goes into the whole issue of serif vs sans serif. Well worth reading if you are visually impaired or serve visually impaired readers.

The DAISY Planet: DAISY Consortium Newsletter, February 2009

The DAISY Planet: DAISY Consortium Newsletter, February 2009

DAISY stands for Digital Accessible Information System -- that is, digital talking books. ReadHowYouWant is a friend and member of the DAISY Consortium and publishes all of our titles in the DAISY format. This makes them accessible to blind and dyslexic readers, as well as to physically handicapped readers who can operate a computer with an assistive input device. Please click the link above to read the DAISY Consortium's newest newsletter. If you are interested in assitive technology, then this is well worth subscribing to.

Interesting take on Kindle 2 TTS by a visually impaired book reviewer

Talkback on Publishers Weekly

I really like what Sarah F. Gold says in this article. If you are visually impaired, then being able to enlarge the text or hear it read is a whole lot better than not being able to. Never mind that the Kindle TTS may not sound like a human. It's a whole lot better than not being able to read the book at all.

Too bad about the sticker shock of one of our longer LP books. She must have been looking at it in one of the larger fonts. Most of our books are priced about the same as the original trade editions.