I think generally no, Google books is not accessible. Allegedly some of the Google books pages have an OCR version link which is only detectable by screen readers and is not visible to sighted users. If this exists it is one of the first links you will come across on the page and will be called something like OCR. . In practice though the number of Google books which have this accessible link appear to be tiny and constrained to a few mainstream books. I have never known an academic reference I have needed have this accessible link.
In theory you should be able to print the pages to a virtual printer like Kurzweil or Microsoft document Image scanning. In practice I found that Kurzweil 11 produces gibberish whilst even the normally reliable Microsoft option produced only a small amount of readable text . I have had to resort to a support worker typing out the contents of a page in the past. So to sum up I do not rely at all on Google books beyond getting reference information which I then order the physical book from the library to scan. If anybody has had greater success than me in accessing google books then I would be delighted to learn how they did it. Regards David Griffith -----Original Message----- From: [email protected] [mailto:[email protected]] On Behalf Of Mark Sent: Sunday, 13 December 2009 07:11 To: [email protected] Subject: [Blind-Computing] Accessible Google Books? Hi Recently, it was pointed out to me that Google Books has a text book I need to read part of. Unfortunately all I am finding in the book are graphics. No screen reader friendly text. Am I missing something? Is there a way to access this book? God bless, Mark -- Currently in Pendleton, Eastern Oregon Regional At Pendleton, Oregon Overcast, 19.0°F(-7.2°C) Wind:WNW (290°) at 5mph (4KT) * Ever stop to think, and forget to start again? Created by Weather Signature v1.20 . http://www.weathersig.com For answers to frequently asked questions about this list visit: http://www.jaws-users.com/help/ __________ Information from ESET Smart Security, version of virus signature database 4682 (20091212) __________ The message was checked by ESET Smart Security. http://www.eset.com __________ Information from ESET Smart Security, version of virus signature database 4682 (20091212) __________ The message was checked by ESET Smart Security. http://www.eset.com __________ Information from ESET Smart Security, version of virus signature database 4682 (20091212) __________ The message was checked by ESET Smart Security. http://www.eset.com For answers to frequently asked questions about this list visit: http://www.jaws-users.com/help/
