Robin>> I'm Robin Spinks
An eBook is an electronic or a digital equivalent of a printed book.
And you can read them either on a dedicated device
which is known as an eReader, or on a Smartphone or, alternatively,
on a computer.
In many ways, eBooks actually open up the world of reading
for people with sight problems.
Because it's possible to customise the font size, the background,
the brightness level etc, it's possible for people with sight problems
to achieve a more comfortable and more suitable reading experience
than it is with a printed book
Jerry>> I'm Jerry Gilbert and I work in Cambridge for
one of the local societies for visually impaired people
Tiri>> My name is Tiri and I'm 12 years old
and I like using eBooks because they're much more accessible.
Collette>> My name's Collette. I love eBooks because it must be about,
it's about four years now since I've been able to read large print.
Ian>> My name's Ian Macrae. I'm the editor of a magazine called Disability Now.
Kevin>> I'm Kevin Morris. I live and work in London.
Scott>> Hi, I'm Scott. I do a bizarre mixture of working in an office by day
and playing music by night. So I do quite a bit of travelling
and that's primarily when I read eBooks.
Synthetic speech>> iBooks. Edit. New book...
Tiri>> I like the Harry Potter books and I like the Twilight series.
Collette>> I read anything from crime to comedy
Laura, Tiri's mum>> It's all I've ever wanted, that she could do what
all the other kids do.
Ian>> I'm an avid reader and I've recently discovered the absolute joys of eBooks.
Jerry>> I have just started to use eBooks to read for pleasure.
Synthetic speech>> Table of contents
Tiri>> I read it before I go to bed and I read it at school.
It's something that takes up a lot of time in my life.
Kevin>> They give me the freedom to access printed books.
Collette>> It's just so nice, the joy of reading a book.
Your imagination goes wild.
Ian>> Books are as important to blind and partially sighted people as they are to anybody.
Scott>> eBooks have done amazing things in the last couple of years
for blind and partially sighted people in terms of the sheer amount
of titles that are available in some sort of accessible format.
Ian>> I recently heard of a 90 year old who was given an eBooks reader
as a birthday present and he has never looked back. He's reading books.
He's reading newspapers. He's reading everything that he wants to consume.
Jerry>> You can read the latest novel at the same time as
everyone else is reading the latest novel.
Ian>> I was having a conversation with a colleague in my office
and he was telling me about a book that he was reading at that moment.
I went into my eBooks store. I looked up the author's name.
I bought his book. And five minutes later I was reading that book.
Scott>> There are a couple of different methods of reading eBooks.
People tend to either make the print bigger if they've got
enough vision to make use of that...for people who can't see
enough to do that, you can have books read out to you in a
synthetic kind of robot voice, which isn't as distracting
as it sounds after a while.
Synthetic speech>> Library. Open. Table of contents. Open.
Jerry>> I would use this for accessing email, the Internet
and also it has the ability to read eBooks. The role of the eBook
in opening up the world for visually impaired and blind people
is really important. It can keep you current with the information
in the world that's happening and so there's a feeling of
inclusion when you use an eBook.
Scott>> My favourite way, if it's going to be kind of an extended period
of reading and I'm going to sit there for an hour or two and
really get into a book, is use a braille display.
There are units that are that big down to units that you can fit
in the palm of your hand, basically.
Tiri>> A lot of blind and visually impaired children don't realise
sometimes that they can read just like other people.
And it's something everyone should be able to do.
Collette>> The quality of the screen is so clear.
And the other thing is, it feels like a book.
Laura>> One day, sitting on a beach, all the other kids were running around
and she was sitting on top of a slide, completely immersed
in this eBook reader, just absolutely lost. And it's all I've ever wanted,
that she could just do what all the other kids do.
And the eBook reader has more or less allowed her to do that.
Collette>> The biggest problem that I have with mine is it's fantastic
to read my books, and they're absolutely great but I can't actually
use this device unless somebody downloads the books for me.
Kevin>> I think a lot of people would be very happy to buy it
after having tried it.
Scott>> All I can say is, it's not a perfect field yet. It really isn't.
But because of eBooks, the amount of titles that are available to us now
as blind and partially sighted people compared to two or three years ago
is a huge difference.
Jerry>> It's given me my job, really. If the existence of the eBook,
the electronic text, if that wasn't there, I wouldn't be able to do,
independently, what I do for a living now.
Tiri>> The menus are too small so I have to try and remember where they are.
Sometimes I might press the wrong thing and turn it off or something.