The DAISY Consortium is a global organization founded in 1996 with over 100 member organizations committed to equal access to information for people with disabilities. The DAISY format provides synchronized text and audio for digital books. DAISY books offer more navigation features than regular audio books and can be used to meet both simple and advanced reading needs. The DAISY Consortium advocates for inclusive publishing practices that consider accessibility from the beginning of the publishing process.

1. Inclusive Publishing:
The Journey to Provide Accessible
Digital Books
George Kerscher
Avneesh Singh
Techshare Middle East (Doha, Qatar) - November 2014

2. What does the DAISY Consortium do?
Founded in 1996.
DAISY Consortium: a global Consortium of
organizations committed to equal access to information
and knowledge regardless of disability; a right
confirmed by the UN Convention on the Rights of
Persons with Disabilities.
Over 100 Members, Friends and Individual Supporters.

3. DAISY
The accessible DAISY format is used throughout the world.
The first distribution of DAISY books was on CD-ROM, but now
DAISY member organizations are transitioning to online
distribution.
Growing number of organizations are moving to DAISY Online.
Content can be delivered in a more timely fashion, to any
location. Learn more by visiting the DAISY Online project section
of the DAISY Consortium website and reviewing use cases:
http://www.daisy.org/projects/daisy-online-delivery/

4. How are DAISY books different from
regular audio books?
DAISY offers text and audio synchronization.
Text can be voiced using human narration or synthetic speech.
Male or female voice of your choice can be used and reading
speed can be adjusted.
Specialized DAISY player is needed to fully benefit from the
navigation features included in DAISY publication. DAISY players
can support Braille output.
DAISY meets both simple and advanced reading needs.

5. Why do we advocate for accessibility
in mainstream publications?
Adding accessibility to an existing inaccessible file is a
bit like adding accessibility ramps to an old building –
expensive and almost always a compromise.
Designing publications with accessibility in mind from
the start saves time and money.

6. From Print to Digital
The transition of the publishing industry from print to digital is
moving rapidly.
DAISY Consortium is using its experience in the blindness and
disability field to "create" the best digital reading experience.
We do so by combining our members’ expertise, energy and
resources and helping publishing industry make their
publications be “born accessible”.
It is not always easy and there is a difference between the
needs of leisure readers and consumers of educational
content.

7. Image Descriptions
It is important to add textual descriptions of
illustrations and other non-textual elements.
A picture may be worth a thousand words, but if
you can’t see, it does not matter. There are
techniques for adding descriptions which will
enable someone who can’t see to understand
their significance.

8. Testing mainstream reading systems
The inclusive publishing ecosystem will never be
perfect as standards and the reading systems
that support them will continue to evolve.
Our goal is to ensure that fundamental
accessibility features and best practices can be
used consistently by publishers.

9. Testing
The DAISY Consortium advocates for the
accessibility features to be implemented in a wide
range of mainstream reading systems and platforms
and collaborates with other organizations to test
mainstream reading systems.
Testing can be time-consuming, but it is necessary
in order to provide specific instructions to
developers for making apps and devices accessible.
Find out more at epubtest.org

10. Accessible tools that can be used to
create accessible content
The vision of the DAISY Consortium is to
empower individuals and organizations around
the globe to create accessible and feature-rich
content overcoming diversities such as language
and cost constraints.

11. Open Source Tool: Obi
The open source production tools developed by the DAISY
Consortium including Obi enable organizations around the
world to create structured multimedia books without a large
investment in new technology.
Obi is released under the LGPL license and is available for
download at the
Obi project site [http://www.daisy.org/project/obi]
People with special needs in developed and developing
countries can therefore produce books with the same fluency
as their sighted counterparts.

12. Obi: Fully Accessible
DAISY audio books or EPUB 3 content produced
with Obi can be created with chapters, sections,
sub-sections and pages, providing navigation to
the content.
Obi is fully accessible using assistive
technologies such as screen readers.

13. Obi: Popular International Tool
• Obi supports internationalization so that
production can be localized into various
languages. Obi is currently available in Arabic,
French, Japanese, Finnish, Hindi and Tamil.
• DAISY Consortium can provide training to
organizations who are interested in Obi and
accessible audio book production. Please go to
daisy.org to learn more.