The library service for persons with disabilities is in a phase of major change. There is an increasing demand for the service, which has hitherto been expected to serve the visually-handicapped, to cater to other physically/mentally-handicapped and bedridden elderly who all suffer print disabilities. Going with the times, the National Diet Library amended the “National Diet Library Regulation for the Use of Recorded Academic Literature etc.” to enroll more people to provide the service and to widen the materials to be produced.

Here, we introduce the service we currently provide and that increased by the amended regulation.

The academic literature recording service consists of audio-recording academic literatures held in the NDL, and lending out those materials through the nation-wide network of the public libraries, the braille libraries and others registered as intermediaries for the use of the disabled at the relevant libraries or at home. We had been producing recorded books on cassette since 1975 and from 2002 on have been producing them in DAISY format (DAISY books, henceforth).

DAISY (Digital Accessible Information System) is an international standard for digitally creating audio-recorded books for the use of people with print disabilities, such as the visually-handicapped. The contents of DAISY books are stored on CDs readable on digital playback devices or on computers equipped with digital playback software.

The DAISY books are characterized by the ability to provide cues for captions of the main text or chosen pages, and to pack 50 hours or so of audio-recording on a single CD.

We produce DAISY books at the request of registered lending libraries. The books thus produced are searchable on “NDL-OPAC National Union Catalog of Braille and Recorded Books in Japan” (Japanese only) and the lists are available on the “Library Service for the Visually-Handicapped” (Japanese only) webpage on the NDL website. Braille versions of the catalog are also distributed among the registered lending libraries.

Search page for the National Union Catalog of Braille and Recorded Books in Japan
Braille and recorded books produced by member libraries and institutions all over Japan are retrievable by title, author and holding libraries.

As of the end of March 2008, the NDL had produced 2,112 titles of audio-recorded books on cassette, 574 on DAISY. In FY2008, we produced 112 titles on DAISY. We have a track record of lending out 133 titles on cassette and 307 on DAISY in FY2007.

DAISY books and cassette tapes

The production of the DAISY books entails such tasks as copyright clearance, researching words difficult to read, setting out the policy for the audio-recording and editing of DAISY, audio-recording, editing DAISY, printing CDs with necessary bibliographic information and labeling CDcases with the same information. At presently all the work except for copyright clearance is outsourced (though the NDL takes part in the research of words difficult to read).

The NDL’s collection of recorded literature prominently features orthopedics anatomy,acupuncture/moxibustion, oriental medicine such as Traditional Chinese Medicine, and Chinese classics including books appropriate for postgraduates.

To ensure accessibility and preservation, we have been digitizing the books already recorded on cassette into DAISY books (planned to be suspended between FY2009-2011).

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According to the research and experience of services for users with disabilities in recent years, DAISY books have proved useful in reading for persons with learning disabilities such as dyslexia (those who cannot read words or those who can read but cannot understand the meaning), intellectual disabilities or bedridden elderly. Some public libraries started to provide DAISY books to these users.

In 2004, the “Agreement on comprehensive permission on production of audio-recorded materials in public libraries and the like” was concluded between the Japan Library Association and the Japan Writers’ Association and the “Guideline for use of audio-recorded materials for persons with disabilities” was established. In this guideline, in addition to visually-handicapped persons, seriously disabled and bedridden elderly are also included.

After discussion between persons concerned in the Council for Cultural Affairs Subdivision on Copyright (Agency for Cultural Affairs), a bill for partial amendments to the copyright law was enacted in the 171st Diet session, and will come into force on January 1, 2010. The law includes the provision that permission from copyright holders of the original is not required by those who are designated by cabinet to carry out welfare business for the visually-handicapped and others when they produce recorded books for visually-handicapped and the like. Use of recorded books produced under this provision is permitted to visually-handicapped or persons with other types of disabilities described above.

Thus, circumstances surrounding the disabled are greatly changing and it is also necessary for library services to aim for further enhancement. Under these many changes in circumstances, we amended the regulation to provide more recorded books for use.

Shelves of DAISY books

Major three points of the recent amendment of the regulation are as follows:
(1) Expansion of users
Use of recorded academic literature was formally limited to visually-handicapped persons aged 18 or over, but it is expanded to users who have difficulty in using academic literature by reasons of visual or other types of disabilities, including those under age 18 when their needs for use for research and study are accepted.
(2) Expansion of materials to be produced
As DAISY books enables to provide cues for directing words easily, dictionaries, encyclopedias, yearbooks, catalogs and bibliographies are newly targeted for production.
(3) Selection of materials to be prepared for loan
We basically limited the selection of academic literature to requests from registered lending libraries, but will select some materials beforehand for which requests for loan are likely to be made in future.

Example of players of DAISY books
(right: play-only model, left: model with multiple functions such as recording capability, etc.)

As information technology developed remarkably in recent years, development and diffusion of multimedia DAISY books including audio and literal information are ongoing and users perusing text data by readout software are increasing. Services such as delivering digital voice via the Internet for use through PC and mobile phone are provided by Japan Braille Library and Nippon Lighthouse. As just described, circumstances of various media and means to provide services according to individual needs of users are increasingly improved. It is necessary for the NDL to review future direction of services to be provided to meet the development.

Recently, although bookstores are full of books, those reproduced as recorded books are limited, fewer still for specialized academic literature. We hope that by providing as many academic literature recordings as we can, the service of the NDL will be of some help for enriching the informational environment for persons with disabilities.

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