Accessible Publishing
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Accessible Publishing: The Publishers Perspective by Emma House, Deputy CEO of The Publishers Association
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Accessible Publishing
- 1. The Publisher Perspective ACCESSIBLE PUBLISHING Emma House Deputy CEO, The PA ACCESSIBLE PUBLISHING
- 2. THE CHALLENGE Make all published outputs available to anyone who has a print impairment.
- 4. LEGISLATION LEGAL (Existing) Equalities Act 2010 UK Copyright and Rights in Performance (Disability) Regulations 2014 2017 Changes to Section 508 of the Rehabilitation Act of 1973 in the US https://publishers.org.uk/activities/campaigns/accessibility/guidelines/
- 6. LEGISLATION − A national exception or limitation in copyright law for print disabled persons; − An importation clause for ‘Accessible Format Copies’ (AFCs) that mirrors the national exception; − An exception for so-called ‘Authorized Entities’ (‘AEs’, e.g. accredited, designated, approved, eligible non-profit organizations) to distribute and make available accessible format copies across borders, including to eligible print disabled persons; − Absent voluntary measures by rightsholders, an obligation to ensure that TPM protection does not prevent authorized entities and print disabled persons, who have lawful access to literary works, from making required accessible format copies. MARRAKESHTREATY
- 7. MEETINGTHE CHALLENGE The Whole Picture Providing accessible content isn’t however restricted to publishers, it must be the whole supply chain. Authors Publishers Technology Providers Distributors/ Content Controllers
- 8. • Large print now at the click of a button • Ability to change fonts and backgrounds (helps dyslexic students) • Ebooks which include text to speech functionality • Different interface devices including refreshable braille and switches • Price points TECHNOLOGY This is all made much simpler with technology… most of the time!
- 9. OBSTACLES What Obstacles and Challenges remain? • In-house expertise and resource • Promotion among the user community around what is available (EPUB 3 rather than Word) • Data at every level: publishers need to include information about the accessibility of their products within their ONIX feeds and this data needs to be displayed by vendors on their sites so that customers know what they are purchasing. • A double strategy — Both assisting with the availability of access to individuals (supplying files) and building accessibility into the mainstream. • Working with legislators
- 10. • Accessibility Hub www.inclusivepublishing.org • BISG Quick Start Guide to Accessible Publishing • EPUB standard • Accessibility Checker Tool -Ace from DAISY • Ebook Audit https://sites.google.com/site/ebookaudit2016/home • Reading apps accessibility features http://www.epubtest.org/testsuite/accessibility/ • RNIB Bookshare RESOURCES
- 11. PUBLISHERS HAVE MADE GREAT STRIDES MAKING CONTENT MORE ACCESSIBLE MAKES THE CONTENT BETTER GREAT STRIDES
Editor's Notes
- Good afternoon everyone My name is Emma House and I’m deputy CEO of the Publishers Association and chair of our Accessibility Action Group which comprises our members and other organisations who work with publishers on the provision of accessible content.
- Providing accessible publications is not a new issue, publishers have been around for hundreds of years and have always been working to ensure VIPs can get access with whatever technology was available. With the technological advances that really came about 10 years we accelerated that journey in earnest, with technology as an enabler at every step. The industry has been driving itself forward as the technology has made progress realistically possible. In addition to VIPs, we now recognize that other people can find regular print challenging. This includes people with specific learning difficulties such as dyslexia, or those with physical limitations which mean they cannot hold a book or turn the pages. The publishing industry is committed to meeting the challenge that we should be making all published outputs available to anyone who had a print impairment at the same time and at the same price as everyone else, however – we cannot do this alone.
- Firstly, I want to look at the reasons Why publishers should be focused on accessibility and these reasons really fall into 3 categories The Commercial Imperative – its simple, the more people who are able to access our products, the more we can sell. The community of print impaired people is larger than most people realise and are a big book buying community. Ethically, providing content that is universally available and accessible is a good moral imperative. Some argue that in the information age, access to information is a Human Right. And legally.
- A raft of legislation is both now in place and in train which commits publishers (and others in the supply chain) to providing accessible material to the visually impaired. We already have in place the Equalities Act, an exception in the 2014 CDPA for VIP and most recently changes in January 2017 of Section 508 of (https://www.section508.gov/content/learn) which updated accessibility requirements for information and communication technology (ICT) in the federal sector.
- Coming up we have the pending introduction and implementation of the European Accessibility Act, connected to the implementation of the Marrakesh Treaty. Here in the UK we are awaiting an impending consultation from the UK IPO on what changes need to be made to UK legislation in order to fully implement Marrakesh, requiring the exception to provide that any print disabled person would not require permission from the copyright holder in order to make an accessible copy of a published work. This would include removing the need to provide proof of purchase of a commercially available work prior to making it accessible. An area we are looking at as publishers is ensuring there is provision to accommodate situations where born accessible products are commercially available and therefore there is no need to recreate an accessible version. It is thus recommended that publishers make sure that they actively inform the AEs when a copy is available in an accessible format.
- Coming up we have the pending introduction and implementation of the European Accessibility Act, connected to the implementation of the Marrakesh Treaty. Here in the UK we are awaiting an impending consultation from the UK IPO on what changes need to be made to UK legislation in order to fully implement Marrakesh, requiring the exception to provide that any print disabled person would not require permission from the copyright holder in order to make an accessible copy of a published work. This would include removing the need to provide proof of purchase of a commercially available work prior to making it accessible. An area we are looking at as publishers is ensuring there is provision to accommodate situations where born accessible products are commercially available and therefore there is no need to recreate an accessible version. It is thus recommended that publishers make sure that they actively inform the AEs when a copy is available in an accessible format.
- Publishers are however only one part of the supply chain of ensuring content is developed and delivered into the hands of the end user. We start with the author – the copyright holder. Publishers have very few rights of their own, rather we buy /licence them from authors, and the scope of the license we grant around VIP access isn’t 100% in our hands. Generally of course authors are very supportive of initiatives but publishers need to explain the need for certain rights and re-use of the work, gain buy in and then secure the appropriate rights. We then move to working with the tech. I’m going to say a little more more about this shortly, but technology plays a huge role in the provision of accessible content Of course how publishers use the available technology – for example using the latest version of EPUB for creating ebooks, using the relevant metadata and tagging But ensuring the appropriate Hardware and Software is designed in such a way it maximises the accessibility functionality of the supplied file is often out of our control Publishers are also reliant on distributors of their content and in particular the guidance that is provided to the end user around benefit of different formats, such guidance from suppliers on options available and the relative benefits of different platforms ie BlueFire Reader Vs ADE V Adobe reader.
- Advances in technology have helped open up new markets for publishers, and offer vast new opportunities for published works to become more accessible to a wider variety of people. We’re seeing ebooks with the ability to change fonts and backgrounds, providing text to speech, and we’re seeing new and different interfaces connecting to the Kindle and the iPad such as refreshable braille devices or switches that can be used by a person with profound physical disabilities. As such, we are now able to serve a broader form of print impairment beyond blindness. Importantly technology has enabled lower price points for accessible publications. So yes, as a broad spectrum, making publications accessible has become much easier with tech…..but in many cases it is making things more difficult. We now have a specification for ebooks with fantastic accessible functionality built in, but this could all fall by the wayside if you as a reader aren’t using an appropriate platform or reading tool. For example if you download an EPUB file in Adobe Digital Editions, the accessibility functionality is effectively disabled – it provides very limited magnification, no colour change options, no integrated text to speech – and the efforts of the publisher to build the file in an accessible format are actually wasted and technology has actually been a disabler rather than an enabler. .Jisc has recently done a huge amount of work carrying out accessibility snapshots in universities and colleges and noted a number of key technology sticking points (and others) – noting especially the complexity around the platform/reading tool landscape and the barriers (or indeed benefits) that readers experience depending on whether they are reading online, downloading chapters, downloading whole books (usually as an EPUB or PDF) and in which software they are then opened with. The research highlights that the lack of guidance I referred to earlier, or even the provision of the appropriate reading software is often a sticking point on making the most of what is potentially a very positive difference to students .
- In -house resource to meet request needs? The servicing of accessibility requests needs to be centralised within a publisher so that customers and internal staff know where to direct enquiries. Promotion among the user community around what is available (EPUB 3 rather than PDF) Data: publishers need to include information about the accessibility of their products within their ONIX feeds and this data needs to be displayed by vendors on their sites so that customers know what they are purchasing. At the moment the work that publishers are investing in is not being advertised to their readers.
- Here is the list of resources which are available for publishers – and indeed others looking at the provision of accessible materials to end users. On EPUBTEST there are more than 40 evaluations of reading apps
- And just to end, I would like to emphasise that publisher have made great strides and that there certainly has been a sea change with a vast amount of opportunities being opened up for readers and learners with print disabilities, but there is still work to do. We all recognize that making Content more accessible makes the content better and together we can achieve that goal. There is a need for publishers and vendors to work closer together in order to make sure that content and platforms/readers are compatible and that the market is informed about what accessible content is available.
- MORE INFORMATION IS AVAILABLE ON OUR WEBSITE