oedipus' online complexes

Recording for the Blind & Dyslexic (RFB&D) has announced, that - effective 1 july 2007 - it will cease distribution of recorded material on audio cassettes, and will, thereafter, distribute materials in Digital Talking Book (DTB) format only.

Now, this sounds like a step forward for those of us dependent upon audiobooks to avoid illiteracy, and the granularity of the DTB format is undeniably superior to the gross navigational cues available via audio cassette when one is in fast forward or rewind mode, but...

you knew there'd be a but, didn't you?

here's the problem: in order to play Digital Talking Books, one needs a Digital Talking Book player. the same was true of the older, audio cassette format; for copyright protection reasons, RFB&D audio cassettes played at a different speed than normal audio cassettes, and used the stereo tracks on an audio cassette to deliver 4 seperate streams, so as to fit the maximum number of information on each cassette. gross section marking (sometimes by page, more often by chapter) was accomplished through the use of "a beep, audible when your player is in Rewind or FastForward mode". Most of RFB&D's client base already had a specially adapted audio cassette player, sent to them when they were enrolled in the National Library Service for the Blind & Physically Handicapped (NLS). NLS doesn't plan on "going digital" until 2009, as they are currently testing the default digital talking book player which will be distributed to NLS patrons, to ensure its usability (not just for "the blind" but also for those with limited mobility, limited coordination, and/or neuropathy), portability, and structural integrity (that is, ensuring that if it is dropped, it will still function).

most individuals use their NLS distributed cassette players (which feel - and, i've been told - look like they were manufactured by PlaySkool) in order to listen to both NLS-distributed materials and RFB&D-distributed material, the point being that - by virtue of having been enrolled in NLS - most blind individuals receive an adapted cassette player from NLS before becoming a member of RFB&D, so when one did receive cassettes from RFB&D, one had a specially adapted player at hand upon which to listen to an RFB&D audio recording.

there are digital talking book players on the market, but the market at which they are targeted constitutes a fraction of one percent of the USA's population, seventy to seventy-five percent of whom are unemployed. one such portable DTB player is the incredible BookPort, manufactured by American Printing House for the Blind (APH), whose price tag is $395. doesn't sound like much, until one remembers that 70 to 75 percent of those for whom the BookPort would be a godsend, rely on government assistance just to keep a roof over their heads, and hope that there'll be enough left for food, medication, etc.

putting the onus on RFB&D users to "Go Digital" at their own expense, sounds like an undue burden, doesn't it?

and, to add insult to injustice, in order to use RFB&D distributed materials, one needs to pay a user fee of nearly almost $10 (US) for a decryption key, so that one can access RFB&D's digital talking books.

thankfully, there are computer-based solutions, namely software Digital Talking Book players, some of which are actually freeware or shareware, the software solution, however, defeats one of the purposes of digitalization: namely, portability and ease of use.

and what of RFB&D's back-catalog of recordings? one of the unique aspects of RFB&D is (or, at least, is supposed to be) that they record materials upon request, no matter how obscure the subject matter, and when that recording is made, the entire text of the work being read - including page information, appendecies, the bibliography and the source notes - is included, in order to make attrubutions, citations, and page references possible; RFB&D is intended to assist the blind and dyslexic in their studies, work, and any and every other aspect of life. it provides books in toto, unlike NLS, whose focus is more narrative, and - like commercial audiobooks - do not include footnotes, endnotes, nor bilbiography. thus, it hit me like a thunderbolt from the sky, when my screen reader, in the course of reading RFB&D's Go Digital FAQ, i heard the following:

4. Is RFB&D planning to convert its entire library to digital?

No. RFB&D's team of librarians has done extensive research and taken steps to ensure that all of our most-requested, highest circulating titles are already recorded digitally. Also, member requests over the past few years have complemented our market research efforts to help us build an extensive library of books that we have already converted analog to digital. In addition, RFB&D is investigating retaining a portion of our analog library for distribution upon request in a simplified digital format that would not have the same navigation enhancements as RFB&D's AudioPlus books. In some cases, the quality of some of the analog formats that are archived make conversion impossible.

having listened to more than a few DTBs converted from analog, i can assure you that - even titles recorded as analog audio books, as recently as 4 years ago - begin with a disclaimer to the effect that, since this was converted from an analog source, attempting direct access to a page by its number, may not result in bringing the reader to the requested page. oh, and lest i forget, there is also the disclaimer asking the listener to disregard any instructions about changing sides, tracks, or cassettes...

now that's gross, in every sense of the word...

it is as if a librarian, at the dawn of printing, decided that, not only would all new works be published by printing press solely, but that only a select portion of the library's vast and varied holdings of manuscripts would be converted into the new, ubiquitous printed format, whilst the rest of the manuscripts are abandoned as fodder for silverfish, the rats, and the library's ravenous fireplaces and furnaces...

no wonder the DTB format doesn't include a way to directly access prefaces and introductions, which - at least in english - are conventionally numbered using roman numerals...