NLS Conversion to Digital Talking Books

Citation

Johnson, D. (1999), "NLS Conversion to Digital Talking Books", Library Hi Tech News, Vol. 16 No. 3. https://doi.org/10.1108/lhtn.1999.23916cad.001

NLS Conversion to Digital Talking Books

NLS Conversion to Digital Talking Books

David Johnson

Introduction

Most blind library users get their reading material through talking books, rather than in Braille or through the use of reading machines. The last time there was a major change in the format of talking books was in the early 1970s, when cassettes were introduced. Now the National Library Service for the Blind and Physically Handicapped (NLS) has initiated a process that should lead to a change from cassettes to digital talking books (DTB).

What Are Digital Talking Books? Are They Talking Books on CD?

Many people, when they first hear of DTB, are bound to think of replacing cassette talking books with audio CDs. If you think of conversion to DTB this way, you may wonder why there would be any technical problems about conversion (budget problems notwithstanding). After all, music companies have been digitally remastering their old recordings for years, and while their initial remastered releases were a little metallic and artificial-sounding, those problems mostly seem to have been overcome. What is the problem with DTB?

The answer is that DTB will use a format more similar to a CD-ROM. In addition to digital audio files, DTB will contain digital text files and a program synchronizing audio and text. These elements will allow for two new features: searchability (in the sense of the ability to find specific words or phrases, not just skip to a given point in the recording) and large-print scanning on a computer. Supposedly, the National Security Agency can search telecommunications for certain words, but as a practical matter searching for words and phrases in a DTB will have to be done through searching text files and then using a multimedia linkage program to get to the sound.

How Do DTB Differ from CDs, Besides Including both Audio and Text Files?

CDs could be the hardware for DTB, or the hardware could be something else. The NLS is only working on functional standards now. The service will not commit itself to a particular physical medium for several years. If it appears several years from now that CDs are going to be replaced by some other recording and playback medium, NLS will go with the new medium. Whatever playback hardware NLS chooses will not be too different from the commercial norm, since unusual hardware would be too expensive.

When Will Conversion to DTB Take Place?

According to an NLS estimate, conversion may take place in five to ten years. As it happens, NLS has many reasons to be cautious and few reasons to rush. Besides improved features, NLS gives two main reasons for wanting to convert to DTB: possible resistance of consumers to cassettes as they become less generally accepted, and growing shortages of cassette-related supplies and increasing costs as cassettes become less widely used. The first reason seems to be purely hypothetical and rather unlikely as long as most blind library patrons lack an alternative to cassettes. We have all seen shrinking cassette space in music stores, but that is because CDs are available. Reason two will probably be a factor in the future, but, according to NLS, cassettes and related supplies still cost about the same as the most widely used digital alternative of today, CDs. In short, neither reason is pressing.

Obvious reasons for caution include uncertainty about future directions in hardware and software, the need of NLS to make large investments in both hardware and software if and when it converts to DTB, and NLS' limited budget. Compounding cost concerns is the fact that many other organizations will have to make similar investments: organizations like the American Printing House for the Blind that produce books for NLS, member libraries that do their own recording following NLS standards, and other recording organizations such as Recording for the Blind and Dyslexic (RFB&D).

Copyright Concerns

NLS also fears that protecting copyrights may be harder with DTB than it is with cassettes. Publishers are concerned that talking books might break out of the blind community and cut into sales to the fully sighted. With the present system, copyrights are protected primarily through eligibility restrictions and the use of a non-standard format, namely, a four-track cassette running at 15/16 inches per second. When a cassette talking book is placed in a standard cassette player, sides 1 and 3 (or 2 and 4) play simultaneously at high speed. Tapes played this way are practically unintelligible and commercially unsaleable. NLS is concerned that DTB text and audio could be copied and distributed more easily, especially if they were in standard, Internet-compatible formats. Besides use of non-standard formats, other methods under consideration for protecting the copyrights of DTB include encryption and audiowatermarking (marking with indicators of NLS origin).

Current NLS and International DTB Initiatives

NLS currently is working with the National Information Standards Organization (NISO) to set DTB functional standards. Organizations working with the NLS on the NISO DTB committee are USA and Canadian organizations in the blindness field, including consumer groups, organizations involved in research and development, the American Library Association's Association of Specialized and Cooperative Library Agencies (ASCLA), suppliers of NLS recordings, and non-NLS talking book producers like RFB&D.

The Digital Audio-based Information System (DAISY) Consortium is an international parallel to the NLS/NISO committee, with major producers of talking books in Europe, Japan, South America, and the USA working together to set worldwide standards for DTB. In the USA, RFB&D belongs to the DAISY Consortium, but NLS does not. NLS and the DAISY Consortium send representatives to each other's committee meetings, but at this point it appears that we are going to end up with two sets of DTB standards, one for the USA and the other for the rest of the world. This comes despite some obvious advantages of US conformity to world standards, such as sharing of English titles and greater ease of serving visually impaired immigrants or non-English speakers living in the USA.

The members of the DAISY Consortium already have decided that their standards will be based on applications of existing International Standards Organizations (ISO) standards for the elements of a talking book system, such as text files, audio files, text-audio synchronization, and formatting options. NLS fears that a premature commitment to such ISO or World Wide Web Consortium (W3C) standards as Standard Generalized Markup Language (SGML), Hypertext Markup Language (HTML), and Synchronized Multimedia Integration Language (SMIL) might leave them committed to software that will be out of date by the time DTB are introduced. They are also afraid that users of standard languages might make it harder to keep copyrighted material away from ineligible people. Finally, NLS suggests that there may be features it would like to include in DTB that would not be supported by existing international standards for coding.

New Features under Consideration for DTB

Navigational and searching features are key advantages of the DTB format. Right now talking books are only very crudely navigable. Chapter starts and other key points in a book may be marked by beeps audible in fast forward or rewind when played on an NLS player. These chapter indicators often are omitted in novels. For casual reading this is generally good enough, but it creates difficulties for students, researchers, and even casual users of heavily subdivided books such as cookbooks or Bibles. Proposed DTB navigational features include: the ability to jump directly from a title in the table of contents to the item itself; the ability to skip through text by going to the start of the next paragraph; the ability to insert bookmarks wherever desired; and the ability to read or skip footnotes (currently most footnotes are omitted, and when they are included they only can be skipped by fast forwarding, with no way of knowing when the end of each footnote is reached).

Searchability is the other main attraction of DTB. Currently, talking books are not indexed. Normal indexing, with references to page numbers, would be impractical on a cassette tape, and simply browsing the index would be difficult. With DTB, indexes would not be necessary; the user could do a keyword search for any word or phrase. This is another reason RFB&D is more eager to start using DTB than is NLS: RFB&D serves a large population of students and professionals; the NLS audience generally is reading for recreation rather than study.

Another DTB plus is audio compressibility for speed-ups. A literate, sighted person can read a given amount of text much more quickly than it can be read out loud. To compensate, current NLS players are equipped with variable speed controls, which enable blind users to get through a book more quickly, if they can tolerate and understand the speeded-up voice. One proposal for DTB is to include software that is now available that allows voices to be speeded up without that "Mickey Mouse" sound.

Distribution of DTB also might be streamlined. Most NLS patrons receive the books they request through free mail. DTB could be distributed through the Internet, assuming that copyright security can be achieved and issues of download time and software compatibility could be solved. However, NLS is committed to providing free library service to print-impaired people comparable to the free library service available in most communities to sighted persons. As long as many eligible users lack home access to the Internet, NLS still will need to distribute DTB through some physical medium, and it must continue to distribute playback hardware. If full use of DTB requires a full-blown multimedia computer, the costs would be prohibitive.

DTB is attractive to many consumers because it likely would be easier to use by persons with physical disabilities. Remote control NLS cassette players are available, but cassettes still require some manipulation. If DTBs are delivered on disk, they should require less manipulation since more content would fit on one disk, and they could conceivably require no manipulation at all if delivered via the Internet to remote-controlled computer terminals. This would be extremely beneficial to people with missing limbs, limited range of motion, or paralysis.

Further, since DTB will contain text files, visually impaired patrons could have the option of reading them in large print on computer screens. This may be good for patrons who cannot read the standard font in printed large-print books (often 14-point Times New Roman, not much different than "regular" 12-point print) but who can read a larger and heavier font.

Implications for Librarians

It is clear that the DTB conversion process will continue to go forward, and that libraries may begin providing DTB format material to their patrons in five to ten years. For the immediate future, librarians who wish to contribute to the process of determining the direction of DTB are advised to get involved in the decision-making process through ASCLA.

Resources

NLS

Much of the information in this article comes from "Digital Talking Books: Planning for the Future," a collection of documents available on the NLS Web site at http://www.loc.gov/nls/dtb.htm

The DAISY Consortium

Web site: http://www.daisy.org

An essay titled "The DAISY Consortium: Developing the Next Generation of Digital Talking Books," by George Kerscher of RFB&D and Kjell Hansson of the Swedish Talking Book and Braille Library, has been posted at http://www.montana.com/kerscher/csun98.htm

David Johnson is an abstractor and information specialist at the National Rehabilitation Information Center (NARIC). Readers with questions or comments may reach him at jdivad@aol.com

Column editor Courtney Deines-Jones is director of the National Information Center on Developmental Disabilities and technical advisor to the National Rehabilitation and Information Center. She may be reached at cdeinesj@kra.com