Additional Information on the Google v. Publisher Resolution

The Google v. Publisher lawsuits have been going on for quite some time now. I have written about this previously and one of the better posts is titled E-Book versus E-Text Update.
At present, the digital books provided by Google are both incomplete and inaccessible to screen readers and text to speech programs. They are not PDF images per se but on-line formats that can merely be viewed visually. Prior to this resolution, Google was not able to provide books in their entirety. The backbone reason for their work was to provide public access to portions of books on-line and if someone wanted the full book they could order it through Amazon.com or a Google partner. The idea was that the public could leaf through materials digitally and decide if they wanted to make a purchase.

It remains to be seen what this resolution will mean for students with print impairments but I have to doubt that Google will encroach upon the textbook market as their focus has been on the out-of-print market. Keep in mind that even though Google states that its "mission is to organize the world's information and make it universally accessible and useful" - their definition of "accessible and useful" does not necessarily jive with what our profession deems as "accessible and useful".

Several in our filed have tried to convert items available through Google to more accessible formats but to no avail. Will this change in the future? Who knows at this point. As fast as technology moves these days Google could announce its own web based text to speech screen reader tomorrow and I would not be surprised.
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