In an ideal world, all published books and reading material would be made accessible and immediately available for people with print disabilities. That’s the idea behind the concept of born accessible books and it’s one that has been generating lots of conversation in the equitable reading landscape. All people, regardless of how they read, should be able to read the same materials as their neighbours, classmates, and colleagues.
CELA recently announced that we are leading a research project funded by Accessibility Standards Canada which might help get us closer to that ideal.
Why is CELA interested in this project?
We believe that greater accessibility in commercial audiobooks will mean better reading experiences for all readers, and more choice and equitable access for people with print disabilities.
A key goal of the project is to help create accessibility guidelines and resources for publishers, audiobook producers and others in the audiobook industry to improve the accessibility of audiobooks across the board.
Richard Orme, from the DAISY Consortium believes readers with print disabilities “have never had it better for reading through audio” and that “financially, access is…more affordable than ever.” However, of the published works available in Canada today, only a minority are fully accessible, and audiobook production is an important way to make more materials available to individuals with print disabilities. Many commercial audiobooks are not fully accessible, but with some work at the beginning of the production process they could be.
That is where you come in. We will be recruiting people with print disabilities to offer their feedback and experiences as we test selected accessible audiobooks. Why is CELA interested in this project?
How can I get involved?
We are inviting both audiobook readers and non-readers to participate in the testing phase of this project. We are looking for 25 adults with lived experience of a print disability and 25 adults without a print disability to participate. All study participants must live in Canada. We are asking people who are interested in participating to fill out a short questionnaire about their background and experience with audiobooks. From the information submitted in the questionnaire we will select participants from a variety of backgrounds, representing a diverse range of perspectives.
Where possible, we will aim to prioritize participation in the study based on several categories including but not limited to: type of disability, type of assistive technology used, level of experience with audiobooks and demographic categories set out in our funding agreement with Accessibility Standards Canada. Examples of these demographic categories include individuals who identify as women, visible minorities, Indigenous, Newcomers to Canada, seniors, youth (age 28 and older) and 2SLGBTQI+. We will also seek to obtain good representation of English-speakers and French-speakers in the study. English audiobook materials will be provided to English-speakers and French audiobook materials will be provided to French-speakers.
Participants selected for the study will have access to a website where they can find the audiobook materials, testing instructions and a questionnaire. We expect the testing process will take a few hours to complete, and all participants who complete the testing will be paid an honorarium of $100. Participants may also be offered an opportunity to participate in a focus group about their experience. Participation in any focus group would be optional.
We hope many CELA users will sign up to participate or share this opportunity with people they know whether they have a print disability or not. Participant recruitment will be conducted via Survey Monkey survey until October 21, 2024.
