Notes of Right to Read Alliance Members Meeting

							                                                   Agenda item: 10 (a)

Draft Minutes of the Right to Read
Alliance Members Meeting
Held at RNIB, Judd Street, London
on 25 October 2011
1. Welcome, roll call and apologies
The Chair, Pete Osborne, welcomed everyone to the meeting.

Roll call and apologies
Present in London were:
Chair: Pete Osborne, UKAAF (UK Association for Accessible
Formats)
Helen Brazier, Share the Vision
Hans Cohn, National Federation of the Blind
Noel Duffy, Dolphin
Sue Flohr, British Dyslexia Association
Helen Gunesekera, RNIB
Sarah Hilderley, EDIteur (Guest Speaker)
Mike Lewington, Calibre
Ian Litterick, British Dyslexia Association new technologies
committee and Iansyst Ltd
Paul Nisbet, CALL (Communication, Access, Literacy and
Learning), Scotland
Richard Orme, RNIB
Marion Ripley, Clearvision
Barry Symonds, Talking News Federation
Penni Thorne, Visionary
Mike Townsend, Torch Trust
Anna Tylor, Dyslexia Action
Guy White, Braille Chess Association
Stacey Temperley, minutes

Present on the telephone:
Alistair McNaught (for item 8 only)

Apologies:
Nigel Betts, National Blind Children's Society
Kelly Bambury, National Blind Children's Society
Jerome Charles, Dyslexia Action
           Notes of Right to Read Alliance meeting held on 25 October 2011
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Jane Gallagher, Dyslexia Action

2. Minutes and actions from last meeting on 29
March 2011
2.1 The minutes were agreed as a true record of the meeting and
all actions are complete.

2.2 Pete reminded the Alliance to spell out acronyms the first time
they are used in any paper.

3. Headline updates
UK Association for Accessible Formats (UKAAF) - Pete
announced that the UKAAF Board took the decision last week to
adopt Unified English Braille (UEB). Work will now begin to agree
an implementation plan. UKAAF are also producing a number of
guidance documents to support access provision.

British Dyslexia Action - Sue mentioned an online public lecture
on Text to Speech will be taking place on 17 November 2011.

RNIB - Helen G will be meeting with the Publishers Association in
November to discuss enabling text to speech. Helen has also been
working with colleagues on downloadable audio books. Helen
sends regular publishing industry updates to the Alliance list, if you
are not receiving it but would like to be included please let Helen
know.

RNIB - Richard Orme reported that a meeting took place at Hi-
Tech with Microsoft to discuss e-accessibility to make sure ICT is
accessible to people with disabilities. One of the four strategic
goals has now been secured. Richard will be meeting with the
industrial companies such as Over-drive, Apple, Adobe and
Amazon at the Publishers Association on 26 October to try and
move the project forward.

Share the Vision (STV) - Helen B reported that a new
consultation is being issued by Action for Blind People called
Seeing it my way which is set out as a series of outcomes. STV felt
more could be said about reading, writing and communications.
Helen B feels other organisations should contribute, not just
individuals.


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Action Pete O: Find out how organisations can respond to the
consultation.
Action Sue F and Anna T: Establish whether there is any scope
for Dyslexia Action to contribute.

Communication, Access, Literacy and Learning (CALL) - Paul
Nisbett informed the Alliance that there are approximately 1300
titles available in the books for loan database. Paul reported that
they have been working with the Scottish Book Trust to distribute
digital books. Paul announced a new Scottish male computer voice
was launched in September; this was funded by Scottish
government.

Dolphin - Noel Duffy reported Dolphins' application for a
technology grant was successful. The project is called Metadata
Enabled Access for Living & Learning and will focus on education
and elderly blind to improve the metadata around content and
people. Noel mentioned a tool to help with metadata will also be
included.

Clearvision - Marion explained research has been carried out by
RNIB and SeeAbility which unveiled staggering figures showing
the number of children with learning disabilities who are blind or
partially sighted.
Action Marion: Circulate the research report to the Alliance.
Marion also announced Clearvision have received funding to
develop sensory books for blind children and teenagers with
complex needs.

Torch Trust - Mike Townsend explained some high profile work
had been carried out to raise awareness of Braille, a celebration
was held at St Pauls cathedral of which Kevin Carey, RNIB Chair
and John Godber, RNIB attended. Mike also mentioned his
continued work with Christian sector publishers.

Talking News Federation (TNF) - Barry reported that a lot more
local talking newspapers for the blind are trying to make
themselves available to local organisations.

British Dyslexia Association new technologies committee and
Iansyst Ltd - Ian Litterick reported that the Iansyst proof of
concept work called mydocs store appears to be successful in
making file conversions easier. Ian is hopeful funding will be

          Notes of Right to Read Alliance meeting held on 25 October 2011
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received to support a second phase of the project to complement
the quality of conversions to manage headings and tables.

Calibre - Mike Lewington advised that Calibre are aware the RNIB
PTX memory sticks are not playing on machines. Calibre are
talking with Steve Griffiths, RNIB to rectify the problem.

4. Chair's update on strategy, review of
membership and groups.
4.1 Pete welcomed the Braille Chess Association to the Alliance.

4.2 Pete explained we need to understand the objectives of one
another before encouraging other organisations to become
members.
Action PO: Consider how the Alliance are working with reading
agencies and collate the strengths and weaknesses for
consideration at a collective meeting.

4.3 Pete proposed the Alliance meetings should continue to share
information but should also focus on key strategic issues together
rather than in a separate strategy group. Pete asked the Alliance
for their thoughts, comments are listed below:
 The strategic group was originally put together as there were
   too many people in the Alliance group to form successful
   strategies. A suggestion was that the Alliance could break into
   groups and feedback to the Alliance.
 Two Alliance meetings per year would not be enough if strategy
   meetings were abolished.
 The smaller working groups such as e-books and publishers
   need to remain smaller to maximise its effectiveness, however if
   anyone has a particular interest or skill in a specific area they
   can join the working group.
Pete suggested the Alliance should continue to meet twice per
year and the strategy meetings should change to telephone
meetings for all the working group leads to come together and
discuss the strategies. It was agreed.

5. EDItEUR
Guest speaker Sarah Hilderley - content to come from Sarah




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6. Load to Learn
6.1 This is an exciting partnership project which the Department of
Education has funded RNIB and Dyslexia action to take forward.
The aim of the project is to create a fully accessible and dyslexia
friendly website based service which will provide downloadable
curriculum materials in a range of accessible formats for young
people who can not read standard print. Richard reported a lot of
the funding is being used to digitise content and about 300 titles
have been included to date.

6.2 Richard feels there is a lot of marketing that needs to take
place to make this successful as there is a broad range of people
that can benefit from this service but are not aware it is available.

6.3 Richard reported Dyslexia Action deliver lots of training through
different mechanisms such as face to face and webinars.

6.4 Richard announced a website is being developed that has now
been made available to a small closed BETA to test it. The site will
then be opened up to a wider group before being made public. An
advert to recruit testers will be published in The Times.

6.5 The titles to digitise are identified by responding to the need
from teachers and exam boards and monitoring requests on the VI
Forum email list.

6.6 The Copyright Licensing Agency (CLA) believe we are
breaking new ground as we are producing accessible versions of
titles already available but we need to remain open and honest
about what is going on to ensure the end user licences are
appropriate.

6.7 Richard explained this will work by the teacher recognising a
pupil has a reading impairment and then the subscribed school will
be able to download a digital version of the book to improve the
experience.

6.8 Pete feels this is a brilliant project and thinks it will be
interesting to see how the model becomes sustainable.




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7. Format Shifting
7.1 Mike Lewington gave a brief overview of what is meant by
format shifting. In short, format shifting takes place when you take
a document from print and change the format to Braille or likewise
from Braille to audio. Mike explained that anybody in the UK can
make a copy as long as the copy and the original document is
given to an authorised person, such as a VI or disabled person
that is unable to read commercially distributed work. Mike
explained that copying music is copying, not format shifting.

7.2 The CLA scheme outlines what you can do.

7.3 In 2006, the Gower report said there is currently no provision in
the UK for private copying which makes it illegal to copy a CD that
has been purchased onto an electronic device. In 2011, the
Hargreaves report said it favours a limited private copying
exception which corresponds to the buyers and sellers
expectations. This means there will be a fee built into the cost of
the item to offset the cost. Mike explained there will be a copyright
review in 2012.
Action Ian L, Mike L and Anna T: Discuss how we deal with
copyright issues.

8. Accessibility and the supply chain: where are
the gaps?
Alistair McNaught led a session to begin mapping out the different
areas the Alliance members work in, in the field of accessible
reading materials. This was carried out to identify the gaps in the
process where nobody is working to help us be more strategic
about our future work as an Alliance. Helen G collected all the
completed mapping territory sheets. Alistair asked everyone to
email him by the end of the week with any further thoughts or
specific actions which will then be presented in a summary paper.
Action Alistair: Circulate the summary paper to the Alliance.

9. Updates/Reports from the Right to Read
Working Groups
9.1 eBooks - verbal update from Richard Orme
Richard informed the Alliance that a recent industry report
highlighted that eBooks account for 6% of publisher's revenue.

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Choice is important to consumers, the UK has 1 million books
available, USA has 950,000 compared to 200,000 in China, 22,000
in France and just 10,000 in Germany.

9.1.1 Amazon
Amazon has produced new models of the Kindle and also publish
eBook reading devices. Amazon has kept the Kindle keyboard
including text to speech, but the entry model Kindle does not have
audio capability.

Amazon are also developing touch screen devices, but details are
not yet known. A new tablet device called the Kindle Fire has
been announced for the USA only and whilst it includes colour it
may lose some other access provisions. Richard reported some
executives from Amazon are coming over to the UK in November
so he will try and get some further information from them.

9.1.2 Apple
Apple released the iphone 4s which has a new operating system
with some improved accessibility including changed voices. Apple
have also introduced an application called Newsstand which
makes newspapers available through Apple.

9.1.3 Adobe
Adobe Digital Additions is the product to use to read books bought
from a public library. A preview addition has been produced which
can be used with JAWS and they are hoping to release another
update to broaden the text to speech support.

9.1.4 Other news
WHSmith have partnered with KOBO who are a Canadian book
company. The product is similar to the Amazon Kindle although it
can also read on mobile and computers. The downfall is that it has
no text to speech software.

It was reported in the press that Waterstones are working on a
new eBook offering.

9.2 Publishing Industry Relationships
A report was circulated prior to the meeting. If you have any
questions please forward them to the author, Anna Tylor.



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9.3 Libraries
A report was circulated prior to the meeting. If you have any
questions please forward them to the author, Helen Brazier.

9.4 International Developments
A report was circulated prior to the meeting. If you have any
questions please forward them to the author, Pete Osborne.

10. Communications and Events
10.1 Communications
The overall Right to Read messages are contained in the 'Can
everyone read your books' leaflet which is available from Helen G.

10.2 Events
London Book Fair, April 2012 - Helen informed everyone there
will not be an RNIB or Right to Read stand. There will be co-
ordinated attendance at the seminars.

Digital Publishers Forum, November 2012 - A session on digital
marketing is being held. Helen G will send someone along to make
them aware of our interest and guidance

DAISY Technical Conference, November 2012 - Stephen King
will be taking over Presidency of the consortium in January 2012.
Pete will join Stephen in Brazil for the conference.

Bookseller Future Conference, December 2012
IBby Conference, August 2012

Helen is hopeful an eBook accessibility seminar will take place
with EDItEUR.

11. Any other Business
11.1 Web Presence
Pete asked for volunteers to refresh the web presence. Guy
Whitehouse volunteered and Anna Tylor will nominate someone
from Dyslexia Action.

12. Date of next meeting
The next meeting is scheduled for 29 March at the RNIB Offices in
Judd Street, London.


           Notes of Right to Read Alliance meeting held on 25 October 2011
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