- [Host] And we proceed now to hear from John Brown. And then after that, from Dave Williams and Paul Porter. John is from NLS in the US. Dave and Paul from RNIB in the UK. And in this segment, we hear from two major braille libraries sharing their experiences and plans as they expand digital braille reading options for their users. John, over to you. - [John Brown] Hello everyone. Yes, my name is John Brown. As Richard said, I am with NLS, national library service, for blind and print disabled here in Washington DC. Just wanted to take a few minutes and give you an update on what we've done with braille. Over the last a year or two, we have actually released an electronic braille reader for our patrons. It is a 20 cell braille display, a small, compact device which we actually have two versions of it. We have actually two devices that were produced by two different contract manufacturers. But it is an electronic braille reader. It does have of course Bluetooth capabilities, as well as a wifi capability for connecting back to our online content server and the ability to download braille files that way as well. We have the ability to connect our NLS cartridge, which is our primary means of distributing our content, USB-type flash drive cartridge, as well as it's also got an SD card slot where users can side load, if you will, their own their own content or their own braille files. It has input keys, it has a navigation array, all the normal things you would expect to find on a braille e-reader device such as this. So that's been released out to our users. We started rolling out this device last year, May of 2020. The first units went out to some of our patrons for a pilot test. It very well received. We've gotten tremendous feedback from our users so far. We're continuing to roll out. We just received the product from our second contract manufacturer, so that is going out as well. It started rolling out at the beginning of September. We expect or we anticipate a similar reception to the product as we've gotten from the first unit. And for NLS itself, this is really a huge shift for us in that it opens up the ability to provide electronic braille as primary distribution means. Before this device, we were, of course, very, very heavily reliant on hard copy embossed braille for the bulk of our programme. I'm sure as others know or others are experiencing, the cost for producing in hard copy embossed braille keeps going up, keeps going up. And it makes it very difficult for us to maintain a good selection and a good collection for our users. So what we have planned for the future is, of course, to move more and more towards the delivery of electronic braille, receiving electronic braille. We already receive electronic braille, of course, as part of our embossing process, but we do have plans in the future to incorporate compatibility with other formats on our braille readers, specifically EPUB. We're undergoing some initial research and prototyping to see about reading EPUB content on our braille reader. It seems to be pretty straight forward. We don't expect any showstoppers in this. It's just more about as, you know probably, the formatting and what we receive as far as the book publishers go from the EPUB files. We do have a means of getting EPUB files directly from some of the publishers here in the United States. We're hopeful we'll be able to leverage those as they exist without without much transformation, but like I said, that's still a research project on our end to see how that exactly will work. In addition to EPUB files, we also recently explored a contract vehicle with a group called Zinio which provides magazine information, periodicals in electronic format. Some of the other libraries around the world are using Zinio for their magazine programmes, and we are just now starting off a project with them. And that again provides a tremendous boost in the amount of content available for our braille readers if we can leverage that. So we're very hopeful that that's going to turn out well for us and being able to supply more electronic format and have a greater repository of electronic content available for our readers. I'll go ahead and pause there since our time is limited. I'll turn it over to RNIB. You can email me with any questions you have about NLS and the e-reader at jobr@loc.gov. That's jobr@loc.gov. Thank you. - [Host] John, thank you for that. Now let's pass over to Dave and Paul from RNIB. - [Dave Williams] Thank you everybody for this opportunity to share something of our digital braille transformation during these COVID times. I'm Dave Williams, Customer Experience Manager with RNIB. And I'm also joined by Paul Porter who is our Digital Transformation Manager working with our library service. RNIB has been offering braille services for over 150 years. We've been committed to improving access to braille, enhancing literacy skills, opportunity and independence amongst blind people. Our braille library service is one of the largest in Europe, and we also offer braille transcription services to individuals and businesses, plus access to braille products and expertise. So let's talk about our COVID response. When the world changed, we were forced to suspend our hard copy braille lending library. Ironically, while readers had more time to read books on our hands, we actually had less access to books to read. So RNIB accelerated our digital transformation and to make professionally transcribed braille books available to readers electronically. Library members were offered, free of charge, an electronic braille display and memory card containing thousands of titles in electronic braille covering a wide variety of genres. I can switch on the display, and all the books are already here. And if I do need technical support, I can get that from RNIB. I can also use this display with a smartphone or tablet to read millions of accessible books from mainstream commercial e-book platforms. And we also, in parallel with this work, began preparing our hard copy library for embossing on demand. And you'll hear more about that in the future. But I'm going to turn it over now to Paul Porter, who's going to share some of the quantitative and qualitative impact of this work. - [Paul Porter] I'm Paul Porter, and thank you, Dave for the introduction. So the pandemic made us accelerate what we were going to be doing in the future into a much shorter space. When we had to unfortunately close the braille library, we were able to provide over 200 Orbit Reader 20 devices which is a relatively inexpensive, but powerful, portable braille display. And we also were able to provide our books on memory card. And of course, as everyone knows, braille takes up a lot of space, and a colleague calculated that, at the time, we had about 1500 books when we first sent out our first card, and that would have taken up something like two and a half tonnes of braille paper, and goodness knows how much storage in someone's house. But on the SD card, we know currently have 3050 books, and that number is pretty much raising daily. Those braille books are also available on our reading services platform, which also has over 34,000 full DAISY titles. We've also introduced our Amazon Smart Skill service where customers can access talking books through their smart speaker. All of these things were done during the pandemic. We reopened the library, we have switched from our physically built library to real on demand, as Dave mentioned. And we're continuing to get access to material that we can translate - books that we we can translate into braille from publishers. We've got good relationships with publishers and some of them give us their, their new books, their back catalogues. So the opportunities to get more braille books in the future is very exciting. And to have those available at the same time as the book is available is something we're aiming to achieve. So we've had some really good responses from customers. Mike from Manchester said he was a very early adopter of the orbit device, and he said he was able to read the equivalent of 900 real created pages on his orbit and taking it on holiday. Of course, you can't take all that with you on a plane. You'd have a massive baggage excess to pay. Ian from the South Coast said that he joined the braille library in 1971. RNIB is adopting 21st century methods to make their books on braille and audio available. He can choose what he wants to read when he wants to read it. He's got a much more wider range of books that he can read. He doesn't have to wait for books to come through the post. The braille doesn't take up a lot of space. The technology is improving, his choice is improving, and he's a very happy customer. So, I think that's it for me, and back to Dave to give a conclusion to the presentation. - [Dave Williams] So what next? In parallel with distributing braille reading equipment and electronic braille books, RNIB has corrected corrected thousands of braille transcription errors in the open source Liblouis braille software that is relied on by dozens of braille products and services, including screen readers, transcription packages, and embedded systems such as braille embossers. And this improves the braille accuracy for readers across the English speaking world. The international council on English braille is calling on manufacturers and service providers to please update tools, to build, test, and distribute with the very latest version of Liblouis. We are of course going to continue offering braille displays, electronic braille books, and improving Liblouis, but we can of course only do that with the support of our partners and funders. If you'd like to collaborate, please reach out. - [Host] Dave, thank you very much. And you can reach Dave at dave.williams@rnib.org.uk. Thanks Dave, thanks Paul, and thank you, John.