Blind users can access the site using a Braille device or a speech
software. Visually impaired users can set up their own parameters (size
and type of fonts, color of background, etc.) to surf the web in an
optimal way, by creating and modifying their own visual profile. This
profile can be used for any text available on the web, by copying and
pasting the text on the web interface. Any user can correspond in
Braille with blind users through the website. Handicapzéro provides a
free transcription of the letters and prints them in Braille, before
sending them by mail for free in Europe.
2 million visitors used the services of the portal in 2006.
Handicapzéro intends to demonstrate “that, with the respect of some
basic rules, the internet can finally become a space of freedom for
all.”
Things are not as simple for an adapted access to books. Patrice
Cailleaud, director of communication for Handicapzéro, explained in
January 2001 that, if the digital book is “a new complementary solution
to the problems experienced by blind and visually impaired users, (…)
there are still issues with the copyright legislation and with
permissions from authors that prevent us to offer Braille versions or
large print versions. The requests for permissions are scarce and long,
and seldom work.”
Thus the need for national laws in the wake of an international
copyright law for visually impaired users. In the European Union, the
directive 2001/29/EC dated May 2001 on “the harmonisation of certain
aspects of copyright and related rights in the information society”
insists in its article 43 on the need for all member states to adopt
measures favoring access to books for the handicapped users that can’t
use standard books, especially by promoting accessible formats. Ten
years later, there is still a lot to do.
2003 > THE PUBLIC LIBRARY OF SCIENCE
[Summary]
The Public Library of Science (PLoS) was founded in October 2000 in
California as a non-profit organization whose mission was to give
access to the world's scientific and medical literature. In early 2003,
PLoS created a non-profit scientific and medical publishing venture to
provide scientists and physicians with free high-quality, high-profile
online journals in which to publish their work. The journals were PLoS
Biology (launched in 2003), PLoS Medicine (2004), PLoS Genetics (2005),
PLoS Computational Biology (2005), PLoS Pathogens (2005), PLoS Clinical
Trials (2006), and PLoS Neglected Tropical Diseases (2007), the first
scientific journal on this topic. All PLoS articles are freely
available online, on the websites of PLoS and in the public archive
PubMed Central, run by the National Library of Medicine. The articles
can be freely redistributed and reused under a Creative Commons
license, including for translations, as long as the author(s) and
source are cited.
***
Public-domain text, read in full here on John Shaqi.
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