Electronic Access to Books Has changed
Tablet computers like the iPad, Kindle Fire, and Samsung Galaxy have dramatically changed how we read. For individuals experiencing any type of vision loss, these devices have also increased the overall ease of access to print. The digital formatting of print into electronic text allows for enlarging text by changing font size or through screen magnification and using screen reading software like Apple’s VoiceOver, or Android’s TalkBack to read text out loud with a synthesized voice. In addition, since these devices quickly connect to the Internet, they may also function as audio receivers, streaming newspaper reading services and audio recordings of books, magazines, and podcasts in a way that now provides unprecedented access to a vast array of content to readers of all abilities.
There are many great apps to use for reading on a tablet, and a comprehensive list would be much greater than the five apps outlined below. Many are free, so once you get comfortable using a tablet for reading, you will want to experiment more. I hope this list will offer a great starting point.
Five Reading Apps
The five apps highlighted here (in alphabetical order) include: AIRS-LA, BARD Mobile, NFB Newsline, Sero (formerly iBlink Radio) and Voice Dream Reader. Nearly all of the apps run on iOS devices (iPhone, iPad and iPod Touch) and Android devices (which includes the Amazon Kindle Fire). To date, NFB Newsline does not run on Android devices, but that will no doubt change. With the exception of Voice Dream Reader, all are free. Voice Dream Reader is $9.99, which in the world of apps is moderately priced, but if you’re a reader with low vision, it will be the best 10 bucks you’ll spend in a while!
AIRS-LA
AIRS-LA is the app for the Audio Information Reading Service of Los Angeles. Readers do not have to be from the Los Angeles area to use the app or website. A brief signup is required, and the service is designed to provide a wide range of audio content to users who are blind or visually impaired.
Several great features of this app and the content provided include:
- A wide range of material including current, national newspapers and magazines, lectures, and podcasts.
- The ability to download or stream the content at no charge.
- Most of the content is read by a human reader, as opposed to synthesized screen reading.
Both the app and website for AIRSS-LA have an easy-to-navigate menu, so selections may be made by media categories, such as “Lectures,” “Periodicals,” or “Vision,” followed by a sub-menu of titles, and available dates, or articles. For example, under “Periodicals,” readers will find among other titles, “Business Week,” “Good Housekeeping,” and “Forbes,” magazines with a list of available articles or editions.
One observation this user has discovered, is that due to the availability of readers for AIRS-LA, some periodicals may be limited on the edition or article availability. For example a check in January 2017 revealed Atlantic, Oprah, and Consumer Reports, among many others were up to date, but Business Week, was several months behind. Nonetheless, there is enough content available on AIRS-LA to keep a voracious reader very satisfied.
BARD MOBILE
BARD is a service of the National Library Service (NLS) Talking Book program. The acronym BARD stands for Braille and Audio Reading Download. The BARD website allows users of the free lending service to download books and magazines directly from the Library of Congress website.
The BARD Mobile app has made this process, much simpler and even more portable, because reading material may be downloaded directly to the app. When the book is open it is read using an interface that looks and works much like the Talking Book player, many of us are already accustomed to using. If you’re not familiar with the Talking Book program, check the NLS website for an application and eligibility requirements, or call toll free: 800-424-8567.
As a member of the Talking Books program, you may register to download books from BARD with either a computer or the BARD Mobile app on either an Android or iOS device. To register for BARD online go to the application instructions webpage and for a Bard Mobile user’s guide. The first time the BARD Mobile app is opened you will be prompted for the registration ID and passcode sent to you by email, shortly after completing the online registration.
Once the BARD Mobile app is open, selecting “Get Books” will let you search through the NLS Talking Books collection of books and magazines and download items directly to your device. You may have a book or magazine within a few minutes! These are the same digital audio books and magazines with human narration you get in the mail if you use the Talking Book player. One of the great bonuses of downloading books and magazines to your mobile device is that you don’t need to return them–they can stay on your device as long as you want them, and have room to store them! The downloaded book and magazine files are rather large, so to make space for your next books, you will want to delete those no longer being used.
NFB Newsline
The NFB (National Federation of the Blind) has offered a newspaper reading service, called Newsline, for years, via the telephone (no smart phone required!). At its most basic level, users simply place a call to a toll free, or local number, and use the telephone keypad to listen to articles read from their local newspaper.
For users with a computer, however, there are many more advanced options for newspaper content delivery, through the NFB website, so users can customize the way they read the newspaper or use the service. The NFB Newsline app allows iOS users to download content directly to an iOS device.
To download newspapers on the NFB Newsline app, you will first need to be a subscriber to NFB Newsline. To subscribe, call (410) 659-9314 or go to NFB Newsline. The subscriber user ID and passcode ID are only used the first time you log in with the NFB Newsline app.
Just like the reading service by telephone, the app provides access to hundreds of newspapers, local TV Listings, and several magazines. The advantage of the app is the ability to move from newspaper sections and articles more quickly, and to customize what is read with VoiceOver or Zoom screen magnifier. Low vision users who wish to read the articles using Zoom, without VoiceOver will notice that there is no way to change the font size or style, and that the text does not wrap within the screen when magnified, so there may be a lot of right to left panning to read the magnified text.
For low vision users, this is a great app ti use “Speak Screen” the accessibility feature you will find in Settings/Accessibility/Speech. Once it is turned on, a two-finger swipe down the screen will read the contents of the screen. Very handy when the text is too small and doesn’t wrap to the screen.
Sero (Formerly iBlink Radio)
The Sero app transforms your mobile device into a streaming audio receiver that provides hundreds of hours of programming. Sero is a product of Sertek,, the makers of System Access screen reader, and SamNet (System Access Mobile Network–mobile content for technology users with a vision impairment).
Sero has a very comprehensive listing of community reading services, in addition to other genres, such as “Blindness Resources,” “Audio Tutorials,” “Podcasts,” etc. For example, selecting “Reading Services” from the main menu, followed by “Reading Services Audio On Demand”, this user listened to a portion of the most recent USA Today Weekend edition read by a Kansas Newspaper Reading Service. Also listed here, were the NY Times and Wall Street Journal.
For readers not familiar with Community Reading Services, these are often volunteer-based services that read the local newspaper, and broadcast it over the radio or on the Secondary Audio Channels on TVs, specifically for individuals unable to access print. Many of these services now broadcast over the Internet as well.
Like AIRS-LA, utilizing a heavy reliance on volunteers, when reviewing some of the menu selections for reading services, this user noticed several menu items reported an error message when selected, or had no content playing. Considering the huge variety of audio content available from Sero, however, this was just a minor inconvenience. For Kindle Fire users, Sero Radio is available from the Amazon app store and runs great on the Fire! It is also available from the Apple App Store, and Google Play Store.
Voice Dream Reader
Voice Dream Reader has been available for several years from the App Store for iOS and more recently released for Android devices. Voice Dream Reader will open a wide variety of book formats and files, including the DAISY files from Bookshare, E-Pub, Word, PDF, and Web pages. If you have a subscription to Bookshare already, just enter your username and password the first time you wish to add a book from Bookshare. After that, you can download books and magazine from Bookshare directly through Voice Dream Reader. If you don’t have a subscription to Bookshare yet, go to https://www.bookshare.org/cms/get-started/sign for more information about membership.
Bookshare works great with VoiceOver on iOS and TalkBack with Android and is fully accessible, but in this low vision user’s opinion, it is for the print reader, with low vision, that Voice Dream Reader is such a gem. Some of these features include:
- Text automatically wraps to eliminate scrolling left to right.
- A wide variety of text options are available such as font type, spacing between lines, background and text colors, and font size up to 90 .
- Text-to-speech reading with word highlighting independent of VoiceOver, with additional voices available.
- Text highlighting, context sensitive notes, and bookmarks.
- Imports webpages, PDFs, and Word documents.
The list goes on! Using Voice Dream Reader is very much like reading print books years ago, in the comfort of an easy chair. On the tablet or phone the technology permits you to highlight text, look up words in the dictionary, and even jot a note into the text—as easy as writing a comment in the margin of a text, way back when!
Reading Back in the Hands of Readers Who Are Visually Impaired
For many years, this writer felt estranged from my love of books and reading. There are many tools now to resume reading, and these five apps will truly get accessible reading content back into the hands of readers with vision impairments. In fact, with any one of these five apps you may find yourself with a lengthy list of books you “have to get to.” If you have all five, you may actually discover you can read as much or more than you ever did. Regardless of your vision!
Read this article on the VisionAware website!