[WEB4LIB] Re: The totally blind

[Thirza Krohn]

A couple of years ago our local Lions club gave us money to purchase a 
PC and scanner.  The PC has JAWS, OPEN Book, and MAGic (magnification) 
software.  We use Microsoft Internet Explorer for the Internet, as well 
as having Microsoft Office products and the licensed databases that are 
available on other PCs.  There are keyboard commands the low vision 
patron uses to listen to the text of documents on the Internet and 
books after scanning the page.  

We have not had a completely blind person trying to use this equipment, 
so I'm not sure how successful they would be.  We do not allow other 
patrons to scan photos, etc.  If a low vision patron is not using the 
PC and there isn't another PC available, we let other patrons use it to 
do word processing, etc.

Hope this helps.

~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~
Thirza Krohn                          Voice:  (360)533-2360 ext. 2012
Reference Librarian                   Fax:  (360)533-9771 
121 E. Market                         Email:tkrohn at timberland.lib.wa.us 
Aberdeen, WA 98520 
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----- Original Message -----
From: Jacque King <king at julip.fcgov.com>
Date: Wednesday, July 3, 2002 12:17 pm
Subject: [WEB4LIB] Re: The totally blind

> Thanks for the question Mike.  I would like information on this as 
> well.We are currently setting up an Assistive Technology PC which 
> will have PWB
> and JAWS (for W2K) installed. We too, are looking at hooking up a 
> scannerto this PC....small world.
> 
> Jacque King
> Library Technical Support Specialist
> Fort Collins Public Library
> 201 Peterson Street
> Fort Collins, CO  80524
> (970) 221-6716
> king at julip.fcgov.com
> 
> 
> On Wed, 3 Jul 2002, Mike Novak wrote:
> 
> > Greetings Web4libers,
> >
> > I'm curious about in-library web accessibility for the totally 
> blind.  We
> > have ZoomText XTRA that includes a screen reader along with screen
> > magnification software, but it doesn't really seem adequate for 
> the totally
> > blind.  We have a new patron who is totally blind and is used to 
> using JAWS,
> > which seems to be the de facto standard, so we're looking into 
> that.  Has
> > anyone used JAWS with Public Browser (PWB)?  Do you make a 
> scanner available
> > for scanning in documents for JAWS?  If so, do you then make the 
> scanner> available to other library patrons to scan photos, etc.?
> >
> > Thanks,
> > Mike Novak
> > Systems Librarian
> > University City Public Library
> >
> >
> >
> 
> 
>