DAISY Digital Talking Book

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Digital Accessible Information System, or DAISY, is a means of creating digital talking books for people who wish to hear--and navigate--written material presented in an audible format; many such listeners have "print disabilities," including blindness, impaired vision, dyslexia or other issues.

Using DAISY, a talking book format is presented with enabled navigation within a sequential and hierarchical structure consisting of (marked-up) text synchronized with audio.

DAISY is a standard based on XML which is a simple subset of W3C defined SGML. It is standardized as ANSI/NISO Z39.86-2005.[1]

DAISY assists people who, for different reasons, have problems using regular printed media. DAISY books have the benefits of regular audiobooks, but they are superior because DAISY 2.02 provides up to six embedded "navigation levels" for content (i.e. other objects such as images, graphics, MathML etc) and for displaying synchronized text to speech. DAISY Multimedia can be a talking book, computerised text or a synchronised presentation of text and audio.[2]

As a result, DAISY books allow the blind listener to navigate an encyclopedia; this is impossible using conventional audio recordings because they lack search and navigation features and they require linear listening. While reading a DAISY book, a reader can go to the next or previous page, chapter or sentence. DAISY is for everyone who needs accessible information and for everyone who loves to read.

DAISY books can be heard on standalone DAISY players[3], computers using DAISY playback software[4] such as AMIS, mobile phones, and MP3 players - with limited navigation. DAISY books can be distributed on a CD/DVD, memory card or through the Internet.[5]

A computerized text DAISY book can be read using refreshable Braille display or screen-reading software, printed as Braille book on paper, converted to a talking book using synthesised voice or a human narration, and also printed on paper as large print book. In addition, it can be read as large print text on computer screen.

The DAISY Consortium has been selected by the National Information Standards Organization (NISO) as the official maintenance agency for the DAISY/NISO Standard, officially, the ANSI/NISO Z39.86, Specifications for the Digital Talking Book, known as DAISY 3.

The DAISY Consortium was founded in 1996 and consists of a growing membership of organizations around the world committed to developing equitable access to information for people who have a print disability.

Microsoft and Sonata Software created a Save as DAISY add-in for Microsoft Word to convert Office Open XML text documents to DAISY XML.[6]

[edit] See also

[edit] References

  1. ^ ANSI/NISO Z39.86-2005 Specifications for the Digital Talking Book
  2. ^ DAISY/NISO Standard
  3. ^ DAISY: Hardware Playback Tools
  4. ^ DAISY: Software Playback Tools
  5. ^ DAISY: Technology Overview
  6. ^ "Easily Translate Open XML to DAISY XML Standards". openxmlcommunity.org. http://www.openxmlcommunity.org/daisy/. Retrieved on 2008-05-15. 

[edit] External links

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