[Athen] My opinion on Bookshare

[Susan Kelmer]

Most people on this list know my opinion of Bookshare files. I am definitely not a fan.

For an organization that receives a massive amount of government funding, I expect Bookshare files to be nearly perfect.  Tables and math formatting done properly, page numbers included, intact indexes, pristine heading/styles structure, all images in place with alt-tag descriptions, the works.  If I were producing files of such low quality for my students, I’d have had my pants sued off already.  To get these terrible files from an organization that is out there convincing publishers that their format is perfect is just unconscionable, in my opinion. Even worse, the time I spend remediating these files is longer than it would take for me to take the original PDF print format of the book and create accessible content in Word or HTML with all of the above in place as it should be. Tables, images with alt-text, properly formatted page numbers, styles/headings, every portion of the book intact including the TOC, index, appendices, copyright page (at the FRONT where it belongs!), etc.  How is a Bookshare file a solution, when it requires MORE work to make it truly accessible for ALL students?

Yes, I’m very outspoken, but I’ve been working with providing alternate format for all types of students with print disabilities for 24 years.  I think I have a pretty good grasp of what academic reading needs to entail for students, and files with missing or misplaced elements, lack of proper navigation, and riddled with multiple errors just make me so angry.  There have been only a handful of Bookshare files that I’ve worked with over the years that I thought were acceptable as-is for student use.

Asking faculty to scour meta-data to pick which book is most accessible?  Since when do faculty even know how to read meta-data and know whether it is good or not for a student with a print disability?  Why are we expecting them to do this work, when they are not the experts?  And should publishers do better?  Yes, they should for ethical and moral reasons, but we also need to remember that publishers are under no legal obligation to provide us with files, much less provide us with accessible files.  There is no money it in, and there are no toothy laws that would require them to do this work. Publishers aren’t in the business of printing books. They are in the business of making money.  Every business is in the business of making money. No legal requirement means they aren’t going to spend the money to fix this problem.  The ultimate burden rests on the campuses that are required to provide accessible alternate format to students with documented print disabilities.  We can continue to rant about publishers, but until the law changes, we are stuck where we are.  Where I take exception with Bookshare is that they claim to be “born accessible,” but in reality, so many elements are missing, or done improperly, that they should not be claiming that they are “born accessible,” or even accessible at all. They are not, and the quality is incredibly poor.  And don’t even get me started on how bad the BRF files from Bookshare are.  My goodness.  Easier to create from scratch than try to fix it.

Bookshare has a long way to go before they are truly providing a product that ALL students can use, providing files of multiple types that are perfectly formatted and accessible, and work with multiple types of reading technology, up to and including refreshable Braille displays or being able to print to hard-copy Braille.  Students with print disabilities come in a wide spectrum of reading difficulties. Files produced need to meet these needs, on an individual basis to each student based on their needs.  Can one format work for multiple needs?  Of course – but the resulting format needs to be done with quality and attention to detail, including all elements of the original material in the produced format.

And that last thing is the biggest glaring problem with Bookshare files.

Susan Kelmer
Alternate Format Production Program Manager
Disability Services
Health and Wellness Services
T 303 735 4836
www.colorado.edu/disabilityservices<http://www.colorado.edu/disabilityservices>


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