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The following information was prepared for the AFB Solutions Forum.
By Michael Moodie, Research and Development Officer, National Library Service for the Blind and Physically Handicapped
On March 6, 2002, the American National Standards Institute (ANSI) formally approved, as an American National Standard ANSI/NISO Z39.86-2002, specifications for the Digital Talking Book (DTB). The standard was developed by a committee working under the auspices of the National Information Standards Organization (NISO).
The standard represents the results of over four years of effort by an international team representing a broad range of stakeholders dedicated to providing alternative format materials to print-disabled readers. It is built on specifications and needs formulated by blind and visually impaired users, who were heavily involved in every aspect of the development effort.
The DTB standard is important because it makes possible a powerful, flexible reading system that easily adapts to different types of documents and different user needs. A DTB is a collection of electronic files arranged to present information to the target population via alternative media. These media can include: human or synthetic speech, refreshable braille, or visual display (e.g., large print).
When these files are created and assembled into a DTB in compliance with this standard, a wide range of features can be offered:
These features enable readers with visual and physical disabilities to access the information in DTBs flexibly and efficiently. This functionality also benefits persons with learning or reading disabilities, allowing these readers to receive this information through multiple senses.
DTBs developed to this standard can include content in text form, marked up with an XML element set (DTBook) developed for the DTB application. The DTBook element set will likely have wide application beyond digital talking books as it was designed to enable the production of documents in a variety of accessible formats, especially braille. At least one U.S. braille software firm (Duxbury Systems, Inc.) has developed a program that imports files in DTBook format and automatically creates properly formatted grade 2 braille, though some additional work by a knowledgeable braillist will often be necessary, depending on the complexity of the file.
Work is underway to pass national legislation known as the Instructional Materials Accessibility Act (IMAA) which, among other aspects, would create a national standard for textbook files provided by publishers in electronic form. The DTBook format is a strong candidate for such a role.
The DTB standard is a result of many years work and much collaboration. The full committee met eleven times across the United States and Canada and smaller working groups met countless times in person and via conference calls and e-mail.
Wherever possible, standards or specifications developed by other groups were used. This draft standard incorporates or references many existing specifications, in whole or in part, including several developed by the World Wide Web Consortium (W3C) and one from the Open eBook Forum (OEBF).
A number of Standards Committee members participate on working groups of other standards bodies, including the W3C's Synchronized Multimedia Working Group and the OEBF's Publication Structure Working Group (PSWG). Cooperation was especially fruitful with the latter group. Our mutual interest in navigation mechanisms resulted in the PSWG adopting the basic features of a navigation control file developed for the DTB. In turn, the PSWG added enhancements that were incorporated into the NISO standard.
The standard was built on a foundation of predecessor specifications created by the DAISY Consortium. Members of DAISY contributed greatly to the development of the ANSI/NISO DTB standard and DAISY has adopted the standard as the latest in their series, calling it "DAISY 3."
The National Library Service for the Blind and Physically Handicapped (NLS), Library of Congress, chaired the NISO DTB committee and houses on its web site(www.loc.gov/nls/z3986) a number of documents developed in support of the standard. The site also contains links to the standard itself on the NISO web site.
The DAISY (Digital Audio-based Information System) Consortium (www.daisy.org) is an international consortium developing specifications and tools in support of digital talking books. A set of "Structure Guidelines" on the use of the DTBook element set ismaintained on the DAISY web site.
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