Overview
The Digital Library for Disabled Persons (BnH: Bibliotheque Numerique pour le Handicap) is a novel project compared to other current projects. For the first time, public service offers an adapted access to books, not an access to adapted books. This project was launched by the City of Boulogne-Billancourt, located near Paris, France. The project manager is Alain Patez, who is a digital librarian at the City Library. After an experimental phase from January 2006 to September 2007, the BnH is now open to all disabled persons, whatever the handicap, permanent or temporary, and wherever they live in metropolitan France, for now. The BnH wants to operate as a public library does, i.e. to buy recent books – in this case, digital books: fiction, non-fiction, best-sellers, etc. – and make them available in various formats to its members. Its principles are to provide easy access to these books on standard hardware (desktop computers, laptop computers, PDAs, smartphones, etc.) and free software, while respecting the rights of authors and publishers. The technical platform of the BnH is run by Numilog, the main company specializing in the distribution of digital books.
An R&D Project
From January 2006 to September 2007, the BnH was launched as an R&D project for a group of disabled persons. Each member could borrow three digital books or audio books for three weeks. Alain Patez explained in June 2007: “We intend to operate on a national level. We believe that digital publishing is the best way for disabled persons to access information and culture. The BnH wants to make it possible for any disabled people to download digital books. These are not public domain books, they are copyrighted books currently available in bookstores.” Just exactly what is a digital library intended for disabled persons? “We need to address some ambiguity here. We don’t provide adapted books – i.e. Braille books or books in large fonts. We provide adapted access to books, with a technical mediation. For some major handicaps – for example locked-in syndrome – access to print books is nearly impossible, whereas access to digital books is easy because the text can be scrolled down automatically, for example.”
Previous Experiences
Two previous projects led to the BnH. Alain Patez has been the head of the digital library at the City Library of Boulogne-Billancourt since June 2000. The first project he launched was a lending service of Cybook reading devices, which began in February 2002. This project attracted mainly older people who were avid readers, and visually impaired persons. But Cytale, the company behind the Cybook, stopped its activities a few months later. The second project was set up in partnership with Mobipocket, a company specialized in the distribution of digital books, to launch a library of digital books that members could borrow for two weeks. This digital library (BnL: Bibliotheque Numerique Landowski) had 1,100 books, mainly novels, 65% of which were in French, 30% in English and 5% in German or Spanish. In 2003, at the request of ALIS (Locked-In Syndrome Association / Association du Locked-In Syndrome), the BnL set up a partnership with the association for ALIS members to be able to access the library. This partnership was the seed for a national digital library for disabled persons. In 2005, the BnL had 256 members who borrowed 1,020 books.
The Beginnings
In early 2005, Alain Patez created a working group including representatives of the City of Boulogne-Billancourt, ALIS (Locked-in Syndrome Association / Association du Locked-In Syndrome), AFM (French Association against Muscular Dystrophy / Association Francaise contre les Myopathies), APF (Association of Paralyzed Persons in France / Association des Paralyses de France) and AP-HP (Mission for the Disabled at NHS Hospitals in Paris / Mission Handicap de l’Assistance Publique – Hopitaux de Paris). In May 2005, the working group decided to develop a digital library for disabled persons. In September 2005, this decision was unanimously approved by the City Council of Boulogne-Billancourt. In January 2006, the BnH was launched under the supervision of a steering committee including the associations mentioned above, joined by three other associations: AVH (Valentin Hauy Association / Association Valentin Hauy), GIHP (Group for the Insertion of Physically Disabled Persons / Groupement pour l’Insertion des Personnes Handicapees Physiques) and UNAPEI (National Union of Associations of Parents and Friends of Mentally Disabled Persons / Union Nationale des Associations de Parents et Amis de Personnes Handicapees Mentales). The digital books are bought by the City of Boulogne-Billancourt and the AFM (French Association against Muscular Dystrophy / Association Francaise contre les Myopathies). The AFM sponsors a study named ELUPHA (Study of Digital Reading for Disabled Persons / Etude de la Lecture Numerique pour les Personnes Handicapees), which studies the way members use the library in their own environment and the elements which could be improved. The AFM also sponsors the library website regarding all accessibility criteria.
Numilog
In 2006, during its first experimental year, the library had 400 users and 971 books (60% fiction and 40% non-fiction), with 1,500 loans. Members – half of them physically handicapped and half of them mentally handicapped – could borrow three books for three weeks. Each book is available in five digital copies (i.e. can be accessed simultaneously by five persons) and ten audio book copies (i.e. can be accessed simultaneously by ten persons). The technical platform of the BnH is run by Numilog, a company specialized in the distribution of digital books, which also runs the largest French-speaking online bookstore. Denis Zwirn, president of Numilog, explained in June 2007: “As the main French-speaking aggregator of digital books, Numilog runs both the technical platform of the BnH – for it to be able to lend books to disabled people – and the catalog of digital books. These books and audio books are the results of partnerships set by Numilog with a number of French-speaking publishers, including Gallimard, POL, Le Dilettante, Le Rocher, La Decouverte, De Vive Voix, Eyrolles or Pearson Education France. The BnH project is particularly important for Numilog, on the one hand because it offers a real service to people with various disabilities, on the other hand because it shows the added value brought by digital technology to reading and to a better access to reading. It also demonstrates the ability to offer technical and economic models that are both adapted to disabled people and suitable for publishers, whose rights are fully respected within this digital library.”
Various Formats
The books [please see the simple search (catalogue) and the advanced search (recherche avancee)] are available in three formats: PDF, PRC and WMA. PDF (Portable Document Format) can be read with JAWS (Job Access With Speech, version 5), a popular screen reader for Windows used by 80% of blind people. PRC (Palm Resource) is intended for PDAs and smartphones. For both formats, the library user can scroll down the book automatically – unlike a print book, there is no need for outside help – and can also choose a larger character font to read the text. The books can be read on any electronic device: desktop computers, laptop computers, PDAs or smartphones. The audio books are available in WMA (Windows Media Audio), to be listened to on a computer using Windows Media and Real Player, and on any WMA portable device. These books are read by actors, and sometimes even the authors, not by text-to-speech software. The same books can be found on CDs in bookstores.
No Adapted Publishing
This library has nothing to do with adapted publishing – books in Braille, books in large fonts, etc. – produced by a few organizations after getting free digital files of copyrighted books from publishers. Why free? The non-commercial right to adapted publishing is stated in the recent French Copyright Law, dated August 2006 and called DADVSI Law (Law on Copyright and Related Rights in the Information Society / Loi sur le Droit d’Auteur et Droits Voisins dans la Societe de l’Information). Alain Patez doesn’t see the need for some organizations to request digital files for free to “help” disabled people. “What should be free is the access of disabled persons to reading, hence a public service of digital reading. The business model between publishers and aggregators on the one hand, and physical or digital libraries on the other hand, is the work of librarians.” Members want to read current books, and not only public domain books, like in the past. They have the right to get as wide a choice as non disabled persons.
A Standard Library
To summarize, the BnH wants to be a standard public library, with a subscription (from 8 euros [US$11] to 15 euros [US$21] per year) and with an adapted access to digital books, not an access to adapted books. The digital books can be read on any electronic device. There is no need for very costly devices such as Braille displays (which are sold between 6.595 euros [US$9,324] and 11.910 euros [US$16,837] in Europe by the company Eurobraille) or rather expensive ones such as portable Braille devices, with a comfortable if not excessive margin for the selling company, and the need to ask for public funding to buy them. This is a very lucrative market, which also applies to a lesser extent to adapted books. Adapted books – both print and digital – are prepared by specialized transcription services located in France and French-speaking countries, for an estimated cost of 100 to 200 euros [US$141 to $283] per book. Instead of adapted devices and adapted books, it seems much more useful – and much cheaper – to buy laptop computers that can be used by a number of people. In November 2007, “a significant grant from the company Hewlett-Packard France will make it possible for a partner of the BnH, the Raymond-Poincare Hospital in Garches (near Paris), to create the first lending service of laptop computers in a French public hospital. This will be a major step towards developing digital reading in hospitals.”
Partnerships
During the coming months and years, Alain Patez would like to set up a number of partnerships with national and international organizations working in the field of the handicap, for any handicap. He wants the BnH to be a collaborative project, and possibly without borders. “The first partnership was created with the French National Library (BnF: Bibliotheque Nationale de France). Disabled readers will be able to download books from the BnH on computers that are dedicated to them in the National Library. A reciprocal link is also planned to allow BnH members to directly access public domain books from the BnF, and to allow Gallica users to access books from the BnH.”
A Public Service
As of October 15, 2007, the BnH is open to any disabled person – blind or visually impaired, deaf or hearing impaired, physically or mentally handicapped – living in any location (in metropolitan France for now), to read books on any device. The handicap can be permanent or temporary, such as a stay in a hospital. After submitting a written proof of disability (disability card, attestation from participating association, etc.), members pay a subscription fee of 8 euros [US$11] per year if they live in the same region, or 15 euros [US$21] per year if they live in another region. The subscription is free for people under 18, and for persons who live with less than the minimal income. For people who live in an institution, the subscription fee is paid by the institution: 20 euros [US$28] (standard use) or 30 euros [US$42] (extensive use) if the institution is in the same region, and 40 euros [US$57] (standard use) or 50 euros [US$71] (extensive use) if the institution is in another region.
by Marie Lebert, October 2007
N.B.Marie Lebert is a researcher and writer specializing in digital technology relating to books, other media and languages. This article is also available in French. With many thanks to Michael Hart, founder of Project Gutenberg, who kindly proofread the English version.