There are several different “grades” of Braille. Most Braille readers read “contracted braille” which uses single letters for common words (like the) and other abbreviations, so that the reader doesn’t have to go letter-by-letter. There are fonts that exist that do letter by letter transcription that you describe, and some of them are here:
http://www.tsbvi.edu/Education/fonts.html

But it is a somewhat complex system. There are conventions for punctuation, and for spacing, for example. There’s an online course here that outlines the conventions used:

http://loc.gov/nls/bds/manual/

There are a couple of software programs that have been developed to translate electronic text into Braille. I work at a university where I create e-text for college students, and when we need to create Braille, we use Duxbury Translation Software. I am not sure what the competition looks like, if they have other, less expensive competitors.

http://www.duxburysystems.com/

Which works pretty well, but like all automatic things, can make mistakes that a human transcriber would catch.

(Note: By reading that idea, you agree not to develop that idea without royalties. You also agree to give me your firstborn child, since a post hoc EULA on a comment is actually legally enforceable… not.)

If this is true, why doesn’t Google (through its google books program) or Amazon (through its electronic books program) make electronic text available to qualified organizations/schools for conversion to Braille?

That sounds great and I hope more authors do this.

HOWEVER.

I do want an option to pay you for the digital versions. I have pretty much stopped buying paper books, as I much prefer the easy portability and backupability of digital media. I have read all your stuff, yet not paid for any even though I am an eager digital customer. I just need an easy, simple and safe way to do this transaction.

Downloading for free is great, I still want the people who make cool things to get paid.

The ‘pirates’ have already performed the conversion to text, and using usenet eliminates the possibility of illegal distribution. Purchasing the book provides the license (if I understand correctly).

http://craphound.com/littlebrother/donate

Josh Berk

If US copyright law makes it legal to convert any book to Braille or audiobook for blind people, can I send in ebooks that are not CC?

Eg. all the books I trawled off usenet before ebooks were popular..

The writing is crisp and the themes are still relevant today. A cute, furry species of tiny hunter-gatherers is found on a planet that was only recently colonized by humans. A large corrupt corporation owns most of the planet, but stands to lose it if the Fuzzies are acknowledged to be people.

Many of Piper’s other works are also available free from Project Gutenberg.

Sharp inquisitive minds gone to waste because most publishers are fearfull in release digital versions of their books. You would think that the publishers would take the recording industry’s storyline as a cautionary tale. Either lead the world into the future or be dragged into it on someone elses terms.

An overview from the American Foundation for the Blind:
http://www.afb.org/ProdBrowseCatResults.asp?CatID=43

Unfortunately they are very expensive, and most cost thousands of dollars, well out of reach of many students.

It’s the official way to get books into digital formats into the hands of teachers of blind readers everywhere….and it’s free thanks to a massive grant Bookshare received last year from the Dept of Education.

Grace (mom of Braille reader and Bookshare user)

http://www.bookshare.org/about/volunteerOverview

http://www.gutenberg.org/wiki/Children's_Literature_(Bookshelf)
- Includes many essential authors such as:
Frank L. Baum
Frances Hodgson Burnett
Lewis Carroll
Kenneth Grahame
Rudyard Kipling
Andrew Lang
Hugh Lofting
Lucy Maud Montgomery
Anna Sewell
Robert Louis Stevenson

http://www.gutenberg.org/wiki/Adventure_(Bookshelf)
http://www.gutenberg.org/wiki/Mythology_(Bookshelf)
http://www.gutenberg.org/wiki/School_Stories_(Bookshelf)
-including, surprisingly, P.G. Wodehouse – more of him at: http://www.gutenberg.org/browse/authors/w#a783
http://www.gutenberg.org/wiki/Detective_Fiction_(Bookshelf)
http://www.gutenberg.org/wiki/Crime_Fiction_(Bookshelf)
http://www.gutenberg.org/wiki/Fantasy_(Bookshelf)
http://www.gutenberg.org/wiki/Folklore_(Bookshelf)
http://www.gutenberg.org/wiki/Horror_(Bookshelf)
http://www.gutenberg.org/wiki/Humor_(Bookshelf)
http://www.gutenberg.org/wiki/Short_Stories_(Bookshelf)
http://www.gutenberg.org/wiki/Pirates,_Buccaneers,_Corsairs,_etc._(Bookshelf)
http://www.gutenberg.org/wiki/Travel_(Bookshelf)
http://www.gutenberg.org/wiki/India_(Bookshelf)
http://www.gutenberg.org/wiki/Historical_Fiction_(Bookshelf)
http://www.gutenberg.org/wiki/Western_(Bookshelf)
http://www.gutenberg.org/wiki/Native_America_(Bookshelf)
– I didn’t see Ernest Thompson Seton in any of the above ( http://www.gutenberg.org/browse/authors/s#a535 ).
His “Two Little Savages – Being the adventures of two boys who lived as Indians and what they learned” ( http://www.gutenberg.org/etext/13499 ) is a classic.

There are a huge number of works in these bookshelves – I would Braille-print these bookshelves and the first page or two of the works that look interesting or that come from well-known authors (a Google count of the name in quotes with the keyword “author” serves as a pretty reliable metric for those you haven’t heard of – many of the listed authors are famous in their fields but relatively unknown by the public at large.) If a student finds the first pages intriguing then you can print the whole thing for the library. This will prevent printing stuff that no one wants to actually read.

There are many works available from project Gutenberg that would interest the kids as much or more than works that are only available on paper. Many of these are old, but not all. Here are lists of books on topics that would appeal to older kids and young adults:

Try the following links to bookshelves on:
http://www.gutenberg.org/wiki/Category:Bookshelf

Children’s Literature
(Includes many essential authors such as: Frank L. Baum,Frances Hodgson Burnett, Lewis Carroll, Kenneth Grahame, Rudyard Kipling, Andrew Lang, Hugh Lofting, Lucy Maud Montgomery, Anna Sewell, and Robert Louis Stevenson.)

Adventure, Mythology, School Stories, Detective Fiction, Crime Fiction, Fantasy, Folklore, Horror, Humor, Short Stories; Pirates, Buccaneers, Corsairs, etc.; India, Historical Fiction, Western, Native America –

I didn’t see Ernest Thompson Seton in any of the above. His “Two Little Savages – Being the adventures of two boys who lived as Indians and what they learned” (Gutenberg etext 13499) is a classic.

And most importantly, and which I left out of the post held for moderation, *Science Fiction*.

There are a huge number of works on these bookshelves – I would Braille-print these bookshelves and the first page or two of the works that look interesting or that come from well-known authors (a Google count of the name in quotes with the keywords “author OR writer” serves as a pretty reliable metric for those you haven’t heard of – many of the listed authors are famous in their fields but relatively unknown by the public at large.) If a student finds the first pages intriguing then you can print the whole thing for the library. This will prevent printing stuff that no one wants to actually read.

The problem here is that most braille libraries are adding relatively few books to their libraries now, or are closing down and selling off stock. A lot of their current stocks will be from anywhere in the last 80 years, in a huge range of conditions.

In general, they buy in audiobooks instead – Either standard CD formats, or ‘daisy’ reader formats which usually take the form of a bunch of small mp3 chapters and an html file that organises them. I can see why they prefer the format, but I cant say I agree with their decision.

Braille printers can cost as low as a few hundred dollars (second hand), and can be printed to relatively easily if you have the right paper…but running OCR on a text and piping it straight into a printer is fraught with risks, as a mistaken character can become much more confusing when it becomes part of a contraction. with printed letters you can generally see what the character was meant to be, but there’s no ‘shape similarity’ in braille to guess from.

The way of the future for blind children who do want to read: usb braille displays. They cost a few thousand each, and it’s maybe 20 characters worth of braille in a live display. They’re surprisingly reliable, very responsive, and can work with most operating systems…the downsides being you have to read one line at a time, and you have to have them plugged into a computer.
I hear that the one-line-at-a-time problem may be fixed in the future with materials that shift shape when a current is applied, rather than requiring many moving parts. You’d be able to manufacture larger displays for a lot less.

At the moment, the only thing I know of with a braille display that can be classed as an ebook-reader of sorts is the braillenote (by humanware). A small portable computer with voice and braille output, but they’re very, very expensive.

http://www.afb.org/ProdBrowseCatResults.asp?CatID=43

Unfortunately, they cost thousands of dollars, putting them out if the reach of a lot of students.

Kelly Halls
CC’s Assistant
[e-mail redacted]

This is a job for MAKE. I bet that a MAKE challenge to design an open source braille monitor for under $100 found result in a spec and schematic within a month. I’ve got $10 for the winning designer.

I would say Braille display users are our most avid members of Bookshare: imagine carrying 2000 Braille books around in a two pound package. But, they aren’t cheap!

Kelly: six of Chris Crutcher’s books are already on Bookshare http://www.bookshare.org/search?keyword=Chris+Crutcher&search=Search and are available to student (and adults) who provide proof of disability. We have an agreement with the SFWA (the science fiction and fantasy authors’ association) encouraging authors to submit their files directly to Bookshare with permission to provide them to disabled people worldwide. This means we can avoid chopping and scanning and proofing the books, and the permission allows us to go beyond just serving the U.S. Many publishers make similar agreements. Inside the U.S., we can rely on a copyright exemption built into the law, which is why we can already have Chris’ books. I noticed that the most recent book we have of Chris’, Whale Talk, is already available globally thanks to an agreement we made with Random House.

For authors who provide their books with Creative Commons licenses like Cory, you don’t have to prove a disability and subscribe. You can just go to our website and get them free, subject to the terms of the specific CC license. Yeah, CC!