Digital Library For The Visually Impaired

The Internet Archive has launched a new library service that will provide more than a million books for the visually impaired in a specially designed format. The new service is part of its Open Library project that has been running since the late 1990s and has digitized more than a million books to date. Brewster Kahle, the founder of Internet Archive, says that the project is looking for people to donate books to add to its digital library and will itself fund the digitization of the first 10,000 books, with the rest being financed by donations from companies and the government.

The books are scanned and digitized using a special format called DAISY, which can be used by the visually impaired or downloaded to devices that translate the text and read the books aloud.

Here’s Kahle talking about his vision for the Open Library project at a TED conference.

Over 1 Million Digital Books Now Available Free to the Print-Disabled

[via GigaOm]

Image by KelliAmanda