Throughout the World, the development of the Internet and the attendant technology is probably heralding the biggest change since the advent of the motorcar.

The Digital age is upon us.

People with print disabilities have been disenfranchised from the mainstream of learning and employment because of a lack of access to information. Braille and Talking Books have been produced to assist people with print disabilities but these efforts are a constant battle to keep up with the growing number of print books published each year and these efforts have been only partially effective. Now, with the emergence of electronic books for the general populace, we have a tremendous opportunity to automatically give people with disabilities access to the new age of electronic books.

This is not to say that such changes as are apparent in the USA and Europe will affect the rest of the world with the same degree of impact, nor will these changes be uniform in their application. Every country is at different stages of development. The advances in technology will not even be phased in a series of concurrent steps; countries or organisations will catch up by skipping particular phases of any development. Such development will also be increasingly affected by political change, anti-competitive legislation and legislation to enable increased competition.

In some countries in Africa the communications infrastructure within, even capital, cities has been non-existent, badly maintained and plagued by corrupt officials who “charge” for installing what people have already paid for. Those countries, which have up to now been in this position, are now finding that instead of moving their terrestrial telephone system from mechanical telephone exchanges to the successor, tone dialling and automatic exchanges, they are establishing microwave links and mobile telephone systems. The classic leapfrog scenario. The costs are less and the service is more effective. This type of progress is bound to happen and at an accelerating tempo.

A similar thing is happening in Asia.

Bangalore a city in South India has become the driving force behind the telecommunication revolution in that part of the world. As a result or perhaps because of, the city has become the main centre for software development. Multi-national companies have moved in, Cable and Wireless, Compaq, Microsoft, Tata etc. Whereas the pace of change in rural India has hardly been affected.

Some countries recognise the strategic advantage of a vibrant hi-tech economy, Singapore is no longer classed as a `developing country ¢ but has joined the other four countries in the region that are classed as mature and developed. This leaves 51 countries, which are all at different stages of their own development and within this group are 12 that are classed as `least developed. It is obvious that all countries cannot develop at the same pace.

In the UK, there has been a frantic race to put cable TV services in place, following the trends in the USA. However in the UK, much to the cable companies discomfort, it did not follow that cable TV would replace satellite or terrestrial broadcasting. Many people having installed the service found that they had signed up to an extra 20 channels of programmes that they were not particularly interested in. In many cases the fact that the cable companies also provided telephone services that were cheaper than the national phone company prevented an exodus. However they is now a steady uptake of the services.

One of the more far-sighted of the telephone companies in the UK reversed into cable TV. Kingston Communications developed out of the only privately run Telephone Company in the country into a publicly quoted company having changed from being a telephone provider to a cable network, providing many different services.

When the dash for cable commenced in the UK, many different companies were given franchises. Most decided to put in the service as fast as they could, based on the principle of `market share ¢ . They laid the fibre optic cable to mini-exchanges and then from there connected copper cable to the houses of the subscribers. Kingston Communications took a more expensive option: they laid the fibre optic cable right to the point of delivery, the decoder box on the TV set in the subscriber's home. They are the first in what will undoubtedly be a trend, providing true Video-on-Demand. Most of the predictions around video-on-demand have tended to centre on a system, utilising off-peak hours to download a 3 hour or so, video into some form of capture equipment in the home.

This equipment would have the capacity to store two 3 hour movies (for example). Each subsequent recording would overwrite the previously recorded films. Where Kingston has scored is by the foresightedness of laying fibre optics (with its huge transmission capability) directly to the point of consumption. They are offering a true demand service. For a 24 hour licence fee per movie, with no on-line charges, a subscriber can connect to one of the central servers and start watching in real time. If, during this time the viewer wishes, say, to watch something else, or go out for a pint, at re-commencement the server remembers at which point the subscriber stopped and commences from that point. All this can be in tandem with doing a search on the World Wide Web, using the telephone, buying goods or even voting for a particular candidate at election time! The Royal National Institute for the Blind has approached this company and the suggestion is currently being explored, to provide Talking Books on demand. Of course the type and format of the Talking Book can be in any digital form as long as the decoder can handle it.

What we are trying to do is standardise the method and presentation, to attempt to bring together philosophically and practically developers of standards for electronic books.

The goal is to have a single standard that meets the needs of all. This is not to say that there must be a single, massive XML (Extensible Mark-up Language) DTD (Document Type Definition) that addresses everything. This document does attempt to clarify universal design goals of the emerging XML standards for electronically published materials.

The standards must incorporate `Universal Design ¢ principles so that all people regardless, disability or not, can use the information enjoyably and effectively. This document attempts to seek buy-in from the key players. It is simply a commitment to work together to develop the standards.

While the blind and print disabled population is small, there are many laws and regulations that place demands on publishers. In the United States, in elementary high school and most recently in college markets, publishers are required by a growing number of states to provide electronic files to be used in the production of accessible versions of their books. Electronic books that are designed properly can meet this need. In fact, these individuals would become a small portion of the market for the publisher.

The product that is universally designed meets the needs of the general population better than a poor design. For example, people driving to work could choose to listen to an electronic book presented through speech during their journey. They could switch to a visual presentation at other times. It may prove that more and more people choose electronic books that are versatile and allow alternative access methods. In short, it is in the best interest of publishing to embrace universal design in the industry.

A committee of the United States based National Information Standards Organization (NISO), in conjunction with the internationally known DAISY (Digital Audio-based Information Systems) Consortium, is working on a specification for Digital Talking Books. This will serve as the next generation of information technology for persons who are blind and print disabled. At the heart of this specification is an XML DTD that incorporates the elements of structure needed to provide access to information. The specification goes on to define how the textual information can be synchronized with digitally recorded human speech through Synchronized Multimedia Integration Language (SMIL), a recommendation of the W3C. The specification identifies six classes of books that have varying amounts of text mixed with audio. Most significantly, one class of book contains only text, with no recorded human speech. Access to the information would be through synthetic speech, refreshable braille or dynamically generated large print.

On September 21, 1999 the Open Electronic Book (OEB) forum announced their 1.0 specification as a formal recommendation (standard) for electronic books. There was outstanding co-operation in this group with the disabled community and this XML implementation is a great first step toward a truly universally designed specification. However, there are many differences between the OEB 1.0 recommendation and that which was developed in the NISO process mentioned above.

A Japanese electronic publishing group consisting of publishers, printing industry representatives and bookstores launched a pilot project of multi-media electronic books supported by the Ministry of Trade and Industry of Japan. The pilot project aims to establish standards for electronic book publishing that will accommodate versatile scripts of Japanese and other languages. The pilot will be finished in March 2000. The Japanese eBook specification is based on XML and is being developed to meet the requirements of various user groups including people with disabilities. The pilot project will produce 5,000 titles available at the participating bookstores. Dedicated hand-held viewers which do not have sound output at the moment are being distributed among participating consumers.

The OEB has talked about the next specification that will be produced. There is recognition that the 1.0 specification is designed to make it easy for legacy documents to be converted. As publishers present their data with both electronic books and print books in mind, their mark-up requirements will be met by a more sophisticated mark-up scheme.

"It is critical for the success of the electronic book industry to unite and provide publishers and consumers with a common inclusive standard to which all eBooks could be formatted. eBook pioneers should put aside their proprietary interest and develop an open specification that will benefit the entire eBook industry and prevent a damaging war which will hurt consumers.

Without a common standard publishers would have to produce for a specific player, the number of titles would be dramatically reduced."

This was quoted in 1998.

The progress that has been made since is remarkable. Having said this, standardisation is not easy because there are many competing interests and ideas, but the participants are able to work together because there is a common benefit. More importantly we can imagine a world where books are cheaper, more widely available, more literacy, more authors and in alternative forms for the Print handicapped.

The OEB 2.0 efforts, eBook Japan, and the NISO efforts for Digital Talking Books should converge into a single universal design specification for electronic books.

We are seeking a commitment from interested participating parties wherever they are based, to agree to work together on this goal.

If you agree that the standards for electronic books should converge, and if you agree that you will work toward the goal of universal design of electronic books, please ask to be put on the list of supporters of this activity. O-eBook forum is the place to be.

The Daisy Consortium has an influential presence, two committee members on the committee of O-ebook.