When a federal judge this week threw out a copyright infringement lawsuit against universities working on a project with Google to digitize millions of books, he unleashed Google's plans and opened the door to the distribution of these books to people who are blind or have other print disabilities.
The National Federation of the Blind on Thursday applauded the ruling, saying it will give blind students and scholars fresh access to the 10 million books placed in the digital library created by Cornell University, Indiana University, University of California, University of Michigan, and the University of Wisconsin.
In the ruling, Judge Harold Baer specifically cited the potential the digital works have for people with print disabilities. The defendants:
"spelled out where blind scholars stood before digitalization: 'Prior to the development of accessible digital books, the blind could access print materials only if the materials were converted to braille or if they were read by a human reader, either live or recorded.' ... Absent a program like the [mass-digitization project], print-disabled students accessed course materials through a university's disability student services office, but most universities are able to provide only reading that was actually required... Print-disabled individuals read digital books independently through screen access software that allows text to be conveyed audibly or tactilely to print-disabled readers, which permits them to access text more quickly, reread passages, annotate, and navigate, just as a sighted reader does with text. ... Since the digital texts in the [project] became available, print-disabled students have had full access to the materials through a secure system intended solely for students with certified disabilities. ... Many of these works have tables of contents, which allow print-disabled students to navigate to relevant sections with a screen reader just as a sighted person would use the table of contents to flip to a relevant portion. In other words, academic participation by print-disabled students has been revolutionized."
