Gift Horse Alert - SafariX

On the Alt-Media listserv - Fred Delvey of Evergreen Valley College posted:

I have discovered that a number of book publishers are offering "eTextbook" versions of their standard textbooks. For example,Safarix. The eTextbooks are pretty much the same thing that we might provide as alternate media for a student when we get books (etext) from the ATPC or directly from the publisher. I have to believe that the availability of these eTextbooks will eventually affect how we do our jobs. For example, is the publisher required (at least in California) to provide alternate text if the student can purchase an eTextbook? Since the student does not have to purchase the hard copy of an eTextbook, the student can save some money (at least compared to a new hard copy) by buying the eTextbook.

To which Carl Brown of the HTCTU responded:

While you are right to be considering how the emergence of electronic textbooks might affect the future of alternate media text production, a second and more compelling component of this development is the format in which these electronic texts will be delivered. It is our hope that electronic textbooks will be delivered in a format that is entirely accessible. Whether or not this turns out to be the case is yet to be discovered. Publishers of electronic books are no less concerned about protecting copyright and intellectual-property than the publishers of hardcopy books.

Electronic textbooks that are being released in PDF format are good example. Are the books in image only, searchable text, or some other form of PDF which does not preserve reading order when the material is used with a screen reader? I rather expect that alternate media specialists will continue to be gainfully employed into the foreseeable future.

I checked the SafariX website for myself. Information about accessibility [508 compliance] is available, but even so there are no guarantees. One criticism I have of 508, and which becomes evident here, is criteria (m) When a web page requires that an applet, plug-in or other application be present on the client system to interpret page content, the page must provide a link to a plug-in or applet that complies with 1194.21(a) through (l). Though supported by SafariX – the explanation that The Adobe Acrobat Reader is the only plug-in required seems inadequate. As we know, Adobe Reader [even the latest 7.0] may be a fine salve for some student needs, but is hardly a cure.

Will these books work in the real world of accessibility? Most likely they will [to a degree], but how friendly they are for individual needs remains to be seen. The books themselves are server-side, meaning that students need an “internet connected computer” to access them. Unfortunately, this may not always be feasible. My first reaction upon viewing the Brief Tour [in Flash] is how very much like DAISY they appear to be -- but not quite. I appreciate the work of Pearson Education and see this as several steps in the right direction but it's not there yet. Even ATHEN's own queen of alt-media Khaki Wunderlich provides a caveat on her list of other sources for alt-media materials as next to SafariX she notes "check for accessibility".

As for those soon to be unemployed alt-media specialists - chin up I say! Pearson and SafariX represent only a portion of the more than 1,700 publishers [.xls document] out there. We and they still have a distance to travel.

The conversation continues - Ryan Collier of U. Nevada Reno commented:

It seems to me that the particular E-Text book store Fred is referring to does not use PDF documents at all, rather formatted HTML employing style sheets for formatting. It looks like the site has a number of accessibility features like tab indexing, text-resizing and keyboard navigation commands as well. If electronic text books could be delivered this way, we'd be in business! Take another look at the preview materials at http://www.safarix.com/ --they are certainly better than any e-text I have seen from a publisher thus far.