Published on Feb 18, 2005

To provide equal access to information, the Thailand Association of the Blind has developed Daisy books as well as the TAB Player, a program to play back Thai-language books for the blind.

Short for Digital Assistant Information System, Daisy is an electronic book based on a universal design standard to allow equal access to information for all. Daisy books are based on multimedia formats that combine pictures, sound and text.

Nowadays, books for the blind are Braille-encoded books and talking books that are normally made by volunteers who read the books into cassette tapes, but these have some problems and are not always convenient for blind people.

Monthian Buntan, the first vice president of the Thailand Association of the Blind, said that Daisy books can bridge the digital divide between blind and sighted people. The association, the Ratchasuda Foundation and the Central Womens' Correctional Institution have so far developed about 500 books.

To develop Daisy books is not hard work when using the Daisy Authoring Tools available. The challenge is how to enable the blind to read Daisy books conveniently, especially in Thai language.

The association has also developed a digital talking book reader program called TAB Player to allow the blind to more easily read Daisy books. As the program helps the users go back and forth to header, sub-header or sentence, they can search for particular pages or information as they would if flicking through to particular page numbers.

The blind could also make short notes in sound and text format when they finish, and in effect "bookmark" their place and return to it later.

Content can range from XML text only, to text with corresponding spoken audio, to audio with little or no text.

Daisy books and TAB Player are not only designed for the blind but can also be used for print-disabled persons, visually impaired, physically handicapped, learning-disabled, and even for older people or children.

"The current version is TAB Player version 2.0, which was developed in the middle of last year.

"This version comes with Thai-language menu dialogue boxes and is designed to allow the blind to adjust the speed without affecting the voice tone," said Monthian.

The association is developing a TAB Player version for use over the telephone to allow blind people who have no computer to read Daisy books over the phone.

The concept is to install Daisy books into a server equipped with IVR (interactive voice response), and connect it to a telephone port. To read Daisy books, the blind just call an assigned number and follow the IVR instruction.

It is expected a prototype telephone TAB Player version will be tested in July.

Asina Pornwasin

The Nation

asina@nationgroup.com