NIMAS in Maryland

From the listservs - thanks to Robert Martinengo of the ATPC who writes:

There has been some interesting maneuvering in the state of Maryland regarding accessible textbooks. A bill was introduced that would require NIMAS files be provided for college students as well as K-12. However, that language was amended last week and changed to this:

• AMENDMENT NO. 4
  On pages 4 and 5, strike in their entirety the lines beginning with line 26 on page 4 through line 7 on page 5, inclusive, and substitute:
  
  "SECTION 2. AND BE IT FURTHER ENACTED, That:
  (1) The Maryland Higher Education Commission and the Maryland Department of Disabilities shall review the research and recommendations developed by the Association of American Publishers’ National Alternative Formats Initiative regarding approaches and technologies to best provide textbooks to postsecondary students with print disabilities.
  
• Here is the link to the legislative site: BILL INFO-2006 Regular Session-SB 392
• Interesting to note that it has been cross-filed with SB 710

ATHEN President Ron Stewart chimed in on the list with the following:

There is a lot of this going on in a lot of states, Georgia, Utah, Maryland, South Dakota are the ones just off the top of my head. We are also seeing proposed four different tiers of legislation, k-12, k-14, CC only, and Postsecondary. As many can tell you bad facts make for bad law, and that is the way things are currently going with this myriad of different state laws, and the NFB proposing a national law that is Chaffee based. Which excludes, at least on the surface, many of your [postsecondary] students.

The Association of American Publishers National Alternative Formats Initiative is their name for their part of the AHEAD E-Text Initiative which I am leading. These changes that are being seen are probably the result of lobbying efforts on the parts of the AAP to have states give us some time to get something done, before we have 50+ different state laws and rules which will result in us ending up in court for a few years before any progress gets made.

AHEAD, and it's E-Text initiative is one of the partners in the AAP effort along with others in the Publishing, Advocacy and Service Provider community. I think it is great that the AAP has chosen to take this step, and hired a top notch person to lead it for them. The AAP effort is not part of the AHEAD effort, but a complimentary and separate initiative on the part of the AAP to develop a workable solution to the challenges of curricular access.