MIDTB Advisory Group Meeting
Online Auditorium
Attending:
Tom
Peters, Project Coordinator and Moderator
Geoff
Freed, WGBH
Laura
Crowe, OverDrive
Loree
Potash, OverDrive
Pat
Price, Vision Worldwide
Sharon
Ruda,
Bryan
McMurray,
Tom Peters welcomed everyone
to the first meeting of the MIDTB project advisory committee. MIDTB stands for Mid-Illinois Digital Talking
Book Project.
Tom went over the purpose
and the goals of the project. The
project was funded with a $10,000 ALA/SIRSI Library Leader in Technology
Award. The award was made to
Mid-Illinois Talking Book Center, TAP Information Services, and OverDrive. The award
will be presented at the
Tom said he sees the project
as expansive instead of focused and as a year long bakeoff to see what works
best. It is not a pilot project or
program. The feedback from volunteers
participating in the program will be very important. The project will provide feedback to the
industry about what works, what works well, and what does not work.
Sharon Ruda
asked if all the volunteers were in place.
She mentioned she would like to see a good mix of techie and non-techie.
Tom said a mix of people would be best. He said that volunteers will have
access to group and one on one training if necessary
for easy access to digital talking books.
Tom introduced the project
team; he is serving as project coordinator.
Tom described the seven
facets of the MIDTB project. The first
facet of the project is content suppliers.
Content suppliers involve commercial content providers and non profit.
He would like to see the project get content donations. He is also trying to
get content from NLS. He discussed the
project with Michael Moodie, Deputy Director of NLS,
who was not encouraging or discouraging about NLS content as part of the
project. Tom will follow up with other publishers.
The second facet of the
project is Genres (different types of dtbs). The third facet of the project is trying as
many different file types as possible: proprietary, open format, DAISY, Windows
Media, MP3, Adobe, Mobipocket, and more.
The fourth facet of the project
is narrator modes: human voices and
text-to-speech. Tom is trying to work with Rhetorical Systems to get access to
high quality synthesized voices.
The fifth facet will be
distribution methods and includes cd, preloaded
devices, flash memory and direct access to books over the Internet.
The sixth facet is playback
software including Adobe, Palm, Victor Reader, Windows Media Player, and ebook interfaces including ebook
software versus screen reader software.
The last facet of the
project includes playback devices including the Otis, Telex Scholar, Bookport, Book Courier, the Soul-mate audio player, and
others.
Geoff Freed asked if there
would be any multimedia. Tom did not
know and asked if Geoff had any advice.
Geoff said he has not found many ebooks with
multimedia and the group should let him know if they find a multimedia ebook. Geoff asked
if the project would test any PDAs. Tom responded that we will be testing PDAs, desktops, laptops, and tablets. Geoff said in his WGBH project, they have done
a great deal of testing with PDAs.
Tom Peters said that WMA
files play back at different speeds and this can affect the types of software
and hardware that can play the file.
Tom mentioned the Adobe OverDrive project which had users test Adobe format
e-books. He asked the group if those
volunteers should be invited first. We
are looking for 100 people to commit to a year-long project. Tom said we would try to provide training and
orientation to volunteers. He said the
project team is also looking for a gift or reward for volunteers who
participate.
Tom asked if the group had
any advice on where to recruit volunteers.
Geoff said he had found some excellent volunteers from the blindmath group.
Bryan McMurray commented
that training is very important. He also said that we should be clear about the
fact training tools are being developed with the help of the volunteers. He said that we should make the less
tech-savvy feel welcome and some way to provide feedback that is not public or
embarrassing. Tom said with just 100
volunteers that he could communicate with many of them one-on-one.
Tom Peters said the project
would officially kick off on July 1. He
has started a project website at http://www.midtb.org. The website will serve as the official face
of the project.
Geoff asked how often the
advisory committee would meet. Tom
suggested the group might want to meet once a month. He said there is a yahoo
group for members to communicate with one another. He also said that advisory
group members that want to serve as volunteers on the project could do so. Geoff suggested that we post results to listservs especially ebook-community. He said he would put a link on his project
website to results also. (http://ncam.wgbh.org/ebooks)
Bryan McMurray suggested
that we not just target ACB, NFB, etc., but other groups with visually impaired
who are not part of these larger groups.
Everyone was asked to share with others what electronic groups they are
involved in. Pat Price suggested
library-talk and Library Users of America.
OverDrive staff said they would send out a
press release. Geoff suggested using Teleread. Tom said
he would prepare press releases and share them with the group so they can be
shared. All members of the group are encouraged to share information and do
presentations about the project.
Pat Price asked if NLS felt
this project infringed upon their service or what their reaction to the project
was. Tom Peters said Judy Dixon was
excited about the project and that he had talked to Michael Moodie
about the project. He said that he and
Tom said the group will meet
on a monthly basis. The next meeting will be in late July. Tom will send some
dates by everyone. He said there are 14
people in the group and he will try to find a time that is good for a large
number of people.
The meeting adjourned at