Accessing protected DAISY documents on Archive.org

The Internet Archive, Archive.org contains almost two million books which are protected, but are freely available for people with print disabilities. Most of these protected books are not available electronically from other places. However, accessing these materials is not immediately obvious. In this post I will describe the problem, and how to get around it.

Though this blog is about coin collecting, this is a topic which can be useful for all people with print disabilities, such as blind, visually impaired or dyslexic. Therefore, I will talk about the issue in general, and at the end I will explain how these protected materials relate to numismatics in general. For the time being, let me just say that it has opened a new world in numismatic research.

Why free books?

In general, people with print disabilities are not immediately able to pick up a book or a magazine and read it. They have to first convert it into electronic format. These days, most published materials already exist in electronic format, so when they are printed, blind people use a phone app or a scanner and OCR to convert this material back into the same electronic text, usually in a slightly worse format than the original. It would only make sense to have access to the original electronic resource.

The United States, and more and more countries around the world allow people with print disabilities to have access to any materials in an electronic format if it is available, free of charge. However, these materials cannot be shared, sold or distributed in any way to protect the authors, and for many other reasons which I will not detail here.

Reading books for free

Before someone gets access to freely available books, they have to provide a proof of disability. There are several organizations which provide access to hundreds of thousands of books, such as BookShare, or the National Library Service. Though BookShare charges a nominal fee for the service, they also ensure that people can get to these materials even if they don’t have an annual $50.

Once eligibility is established, people can read these books on their computers, mobile devices, or on electronic readers, specially designed for people with print disabilities.

The National Library Service distributes a book reader free of charge, to all eligible people to use. These devices can read from a specially designed cartridge or a USB memory stick.

One of the formats Archive.org uses is DAISY (Digital Accessible Information SYstem), which the NLS reader, many other devices, and applications support. However, when these books are protected, reading them is not as simple as typing the password for access.

Why is Archive.org important?

People with print disabilities these days have many choices when it comes to finding electronically available books. The most important sources are BookShare, the National Library Service, or Amazon, where for a small fee, people can read Kindle books electronically, most of which are fully accessible. However, Archive.org contains many publications which are not available anywhere else. At the time of writing, according to Archive.org, they have more than 1985000 protected publications.

Reading protected books

In order to get access to these protected DAISY books, the user needs to provide a proof of disability. Once eligibility is established, the user needs a device which can verify the proof of disability. Therefore, it is not as easy as typing in a user name and password, though theoretically it could be. At the time of this writing, currently there aren’t any available mobile or desktop applications which can read protected DAISY books. Therefore, it is only possible to read them with a hardware reader.

So far this is not hidden information, there is an FAQ on Openlibrary.org explaining what are protected DAISY documents, why they exist, and how to get access to them. As it is not their responsibility to verify disability or provide hardware or software solutions, they refer the user to the organizations which can help. Or, should be able to. Openlibrary.org is owned by the Internet Archive.

But this is where the process wasn’t obvious.

The Internet Archive referred me to the National Library Service to get an electronic key for my book reader device. Regardless of the device I want to use, this will be the first step, I need to sign up for an account with NLS, which I have had for many years now.

My initial thought was that if the NLS authorizes access to these documents, their reader should surely read them. I downloaded a protected book, inserted it into my NLS reader, but it did not recognize the book. Later I found out that it is not capable of reading protected books.

I called NLS to enquire about the process of reading a protected book from archive.org. They had absolutely no clue, and sent me back to the Internet Archive for information, who originally referred me to NLS. So, as this circle was closed, I tried to call the manufacturers of the Victor Reader, which is one of the most popular book reader devices. Though the original FAQ says that protected books can be read using the Victor Reader Stream, it has two versions, the first one from the years when protected books were not available from Archive.org. I wasn’t going to drop a few hundred Dollars to find out that it didn’t work. When I called Humanware, the manufacturer of the Victor Reader, likewise, they didn’t have a clue about Archive.org, and they asked me to call the National Library Service. See above.

Finally I purchased a second generation Victor Reader Stream, which I was sure was able to play the protected books.

This device has the ability to install a key from NLS, which the FAQ refers to. In order to get a key, one needs an account with NLS, it is called a BARD account. BARD stands for Braille and Audio Reading Download. Under the update account settings, one can authorize another player device. Which means that the other device will now be able to read books downloaded from BARD. However, this also enables some devices to read protected DAISY books.

It is important to note that not all devices which can receive a BARD key are able to read these books, the user has to check with the manufacturer.

There isn’t a definite list out there about devices which will be able to read protected DAISY books. I know for a fact that the Victor Reader Stream second generation, the Bookport, and the BrailleNote/VoiceNote notetaker family will work. There is a good chance that many other devices will work as well, but I did not have a way to verify this information.

When requesting a BARD key, the user needs to select a device. When I selected the Victor Reader Stream, on the next screen I had to provide the serial number. In a couple of days after the NLS verified my reader and eligibility, I received an email. Since my device also has wireless capabilities, the authorization was downloaded automatically the next time I turned on my device. At this point, I was able to not only read BARD books, but any protected DAISY documents I have uploaded on my device. If a device does not have a wireless option, the authorization key has to be installed manually. NLS provides instructions on how to do it when emailing the authorization key.

Are protected documents free for all people with print disabilities?

Where I see the biggest problem is between legislation and implementation. At least in the US, electronic documents should be free for people with print disabilities. In other countries the question is much more difficult, because when a service and disability verification exists in the US, the same process cannot be extended to other countries. Solutions are on the way, but it is not easy to create a global verification system, not to mention that legislation is different in each country. What is missing in the US, is the ability to provide access to the free materials for all people with print disabilities.

The first obstacle is the lack of information. Or, if this information is available, it is hard to find. With this article I am hoping to provide the necessary explanation and information, but let’s face it, when people are searching for the solution, it is not a numismatic blog that they will check first.

The second problem is that the organization which authorizes access to information does not have the software or hardware solution to read almost two million documents which were created to break down some of the information barrier on Archive.org.

I cannot imagine how many thousands of hours it took to create and upload these protected documents, not to mention the cost of this work, while in the community who would make use of these resources, it is almost a secret.

As far as the costs, it is not exactly free. One needs to have a hardware to read the documents, which can range from a couple of hundred Dollars to several thousands when using a braille notetaker. However, this cost is minimal compared to what it would cost us to obtain the print books or magazines and convert them into an electronic format. I am using an average quality scanner, and I can read 2-3 pages a minute. Once I have calculated that each month, related to my work, hobby and free time activities, I use approximately 50 books. I either read them cover to cover, or use it as a reference material. Without the ability to have instant access to electronic books, I would not be able to obtain all this information. Not to mention that it helps me to be much more productive when it comes to employment or education. So, while it is not free, the cost is very nominal, and negligible given how much help it is for us on a daily basis. I still wish there was a software solution which I could use either on my computer or mobile phone. It would not only decrease the number of devices I would have to carry around, but would also make it much easier for people to get set up with this service, similar to how the NLS books are available on mobile devices.

Protected books and numismatics

There is a web site, the Newman Numismatic Portal, which alone changed what numismatics means to me. Though I’ve been collecting coins since I was six, I couldn’t find much information about coins. When things started to change was when the online coin catalogs started to appear, I first got a subscription in 2008. But the Newman Numismatic Portal in the last few years made research more imaginable without vision than ever before. Of course, it is always possible to get books and magazines and scan them one by one. But this is where the NNP helps.

It is an initiative that gathers and digitizes numismatic information. In their own words, “NNP is dedicated to becoming the primary and most comprehensive resource for numismatic research and reference material”.

Indeed, they have hundreds of books, thousands of periodicals and auction catalogs just to name a few things.

But here is where it gets interesting for print disabled people. The NNP also digitizes books which are under copyright protection. This way, these books become searchable, but cannot be downloaded. However, the digitized books are housed on Archive.org, and the books under copyright are readable for people with print disabilities as protected DAISY documents.

Currently, there are close to 7000 numismatic documents in this format. This collection allows me to get some of the latest information about numismatics which sighted people need to read from paper based books and magazines when they find the information they are looking for through the online search.

You can find these lists here:

• Restricted materials from the American Numismatic Society
• All other restricted materials by the Newman Numismatic Portal

Currently I am doing an extensive research, mostly dealing with contemporary literature. When I searched on my main keyword only among the protected documents, I found over a hundred results. This is information I would not be able to find anywhere else, it would have taken me months of research just to compile this list, not to mention that I would still have to obtain the literature from libraries and scan them one by one. Today, when I am interested, I just run a search, download the book, copy it over to my Victor Reader, and read and search the material.

The opportunity the NNP and Archive.org has opened to me is incredible. I hope this information will help other people with print disabilities to explore and use this immense amount of literature.