Accessible Books Consortium
Soon you will be able to access 99,500 DAISY books via the Accessible Books Consortium (ABC) catalogue with the Blind Low Vision NZ Alexa Skill
What is the Accessible Books Consortium (ABC)?
The Accessible Books Consortium (ABC) is a public-private partnership led by the World Intellectual Property Organization (WIPO). It includes organizations that represent people with print disabilities such as the World Blind Union (WBU); libraries for the blind; standards bodies, and organizations representing authors, publishers and collective management organizations.
Their goal is to increase the number of books worldwide in accessible formats – such as braille, audio, e-text, large print – and to make them available to people who are blind, have low vision or are otherwise print disabled
Accessing ABC Books with Alexa
On February 15th there was an update to the BLVNZ skill so library members can access an extra 99,500 DAISY books from the Accessible Books Consortium (ABC) catalogue. To get the best experience reading these books, we have added a feature called bookshelf. The bookshelf is where ABC books can be downloaded and accessed. Once downloaded, the ABC books can be read using the same commands as is used for the BLVNZ books.
How does it work?
When you search for a book with Alexa, you will now be given two sets of results. Option one is the existing Blind Low Vision Library results, and option two is the results from ABC. Once you have selected the book from the ABC results list, you will need to download the book. Once downloaded it will be available to read in a new area in the Alexa skill called the bookshelf. You will hear a ‘beep beep’ sound when it’s available to be read. This process is necessary for you to have the best experience of listening to the ABC DAISY books. More resources wil be added here once the update has been launched
Resources
This document covers an overview of the skill, step by step instructions and an Alexa transcript of the changes.
What about EasyReader?
ABC content is comming soon to EasyReader. We will keep you informed as soon as we get updates from Dolphin Computer Access, the developers of Easyreader
What about Envoy and BookDrive users?
BookDrive and Envoy users cannot access ABC books directly. However, we can still get books from ABC and add to the library for BookDrive and Envoy users via the usual book request/recommendation process.
Frequently Asked Questions
Will there be duplicate copies?
It is possible there are different versions of the same book on both catalogues.Unfortunately, we are unable to remove all duplicates from the search due to differences in metadata between both catalogues.
What content is available from the ABC?
Books can be searched and found using the ABC website https://www.abcglobalbooks.org/search.
However, note that for the BLVNZ Alexa skill we are filtering out the following…
- Books that are not available for immediate download.
- Books that are produced by BLVNZ and already exist in out catalogue.
- Synthetic narrated books. Only human narrated books are included.
- All books that are not in English. Only English titles for now will be available via the ABC Search. Other languages and content can be accessed via direct access to the ABC.
Can I access the ABC catalogue directly?
Verified BLVNZ members can request a user login to the ABC Global Book Service by submitting an Account Request Form. With direct access you can access a wider range of content from the ABC including Braille and books in other languages and formats. You may request a user login to the ABC Global Book Service by submitting an Account Request Form.