Tiflolibros also has a small collection of books in German and English -- about 2000 German books and about 500 English books. Also, the books that I received from them after becoming a member a couple of months ago have always been in text format and were not encoded as mentioned in this article.
Geetha ----- Original Message ----- From: "Shiv" <[EMAIL PROTECTED]> To: <[email protected]> Sent: Tuesday, May 08, 2007 12:44 PM Subject: [AI] Latin America's visually impaired go online forSpanish-speaking 'library for the blind' Latin America's visually impaired go online for Spanish-speaking 'library for the blind' By The Associated Press For retired doctor Edgardo Etchevarria, reading was a lifelong habit until retinal infections took away his sight 13 years ago. "I wasn't practicing medicine anymore and reading was the last thing I had left," Etchevarria said, lamenting the years after darkness closed in. Now 83, the voracious reader who tackled Homer's "Odyssey" at age 10 is hitting the books again thanks to Tiflolibros, Latin America's virtual library for the blind. The service sends out e-mail files that can be read out by synthetic voice software on the user's computer. Named after Tiflos, an island where the blind were banished in Greek mythology, and the Spanish word for books, the Buenos Aires-based library was the first online library for the blind ever created and is the largest of its kind. It serves some 3,000 people in 40 countries. Library co-founder Marta Traina said Tiflolibros has grown since its launch in 1999 to house some 20,000 works in Spanish, from best-sellers like the "Harry Potter" series and Tom Clancy thrillers to children's books. "Just as ordinary libraries respond to the varied interests of their readers, among our 3,000 users, there are people of many backgrounds and interests," Traina said at Tiflolibros' headquarters, where employees scan new titles into the system each day. "Some want to read crime novels, others esoteric works, still others philosophy, psychology and even children's literature." After registering and submitting proof of visual impairment, users can search by genre, title or author for books that then are e-mailed to them as coded files that computers can convert to speech using technology developed by co-founder and blind programmer Andre Dure. The service gives access to people who are not fluent in the Braille system of reading, and allows for large stores of titles to be converted to audio far quicker than traditional audio books. Dure said the encryption also helps Tiflolibros, a nonprofit, stay within fair-use limits and avoid potential copyright issues. "What the user gets is not the real text but an encoded message," he said. A similar operation in the United States, Bookshare.org, boasts more than 31,100 titles mostly in English and has begun to incorporate Spanish books. But Traina said Tiflolibros is the first online library of text-to-speech files of its scope for the Spanish-speaking world. "The wonderful thing is to have the chance to get close to great works one always wanted to read," Traina said. She added that Tiflolibros has also turned into a social networking site for blind bibliophiles. "The mailing list allows people to get to know each other, even chat online or meet," she said. "All this happens through the membership in the library and sharing advice and information about books." The service is free, and "checking out" a book takes just minutes. "Tiflolibros was a turning point," Etchevarria said. "It allowed me to keep using my brain." ___ On the Net: Tiflolibros: http://www.tiflolibros.com.ar Copyright The Associated Press 2007. All Rights Reserved To unsubscribe send a message to [EMAIL PROTECTED] with the subject unsubscribe. To change your subscription to digest mode or make any other changes, please visit the list home page at http://accessindia.org.in/mailman/listinfo/accessindia_accessindia.org.in To unsubscribe send a message to [EMAIL PROTECTED] with the subject unsubscribe. To change your subscription to digest mode or make any other changes, please visit the list home page at http://accessindia.org.in/mailman/listinfo/accessindia_accessindia.org.in
