Accessible textbooks – jigsaw piece 3/3

Crowd-sourced accessibility

If you have scanned an entire book under the provisions of the Copyright and Rights in Performances (Disability) Regulations 2014 the best thing you can do with any intermediate copy is upload it to Load2Learn so that others can benefit and even build on its accessibility.

However, sometimes you only need to scan a section of a book. This may be
extremely useful to other organisations who use the same text on their reading lists but you cannot upload partial books to Load2Learn.

This is where “crowd-sourced accessibility” comes into its own. If you join the LIS-Accessibility jiscmail list  you are automatically in contact with a wide range of practitioners who are involved in sourcing alternative formats. This is an ideal forum in which to request accessible extracts or offer yours to other authorised bodies.

It’s important to note however that such dealings still need to be under the provisions of the Copyright Act so , for example, you cannot request accessible copies of extracts which the library doesn’t have legitimate access to via purchase or licensing. But if you already have the hard copy books (or inaccessible digital files) then you are entitled to request or share any intermediate copies.

If you’re still not sure what an intermediate copy is then look at the next posting…