The EODOPEN working group „Delivery formats of digitised material for special needs“ (WG 4) led by the National and University Library of Slovenia (NUK) prepared a survey that aims to capture a broader insight into the reading experience of users and to get information about positive or negative characteristics of devices and formats that support e-books.

The aims of WG 4 are to investigate how to make available digitised work to a broader audience (i.e. younger population and blind and visually impaired); adapt digital objects for users of mobile devices and blind or visually impaired users; and to set guidelines and recommendations for delivery format. „So far, we are working on the development of the Guidelines and recommendations for the provision of alternative and special formats. For this task, we are doing a research on special needs of users and technical requirements,“ said WG4 leader Alenka Kavčič Čolić when commenting the purpose of the survey.

„In order to get as much as possible information on international level, we produced two questionnaries, one for the users of mobile devices and other for the blind and visually impaired ebook readers,” specified Kavčič Čolić and added that both surveys were translated into 12 languages and distributed in partners’ networks. A third survey was prepared among EODOPEN partners only in order to find out about their digitization environments, experiences and good practices which could be used on international level.

The work group expects to get a clear picture about the situation in EODOPEN partners and on their users' needs concerning the access to digitized publications. This information will be taken into consideration in the production of the international guidelines mentioned above. In the third part of the project, the training and workshops will be organised for the librarians and other cultural workers in order to provide them with the skills, competences and know-how to produce alternative delivery formats.

„At this stage, we would like to thank very much all partners and cooperating organizations in their countries for helping us in the distribution of and answering to the questionnaires,“ concluded WG 4 leader Alenka Kavčič Čolić.

May 11, 2020