e-Access 08 was a great day in London

e-Access is a yearly conference in London reviewing accessibility and technology. I could not attend last year so I found it particularly interesting to compare the change in emphasis over two years. See my blog Second Life is now too important not to be accessible.

Tara Alexander of the RNIB and Rachel Bagust of Dolphin discussed the future of DAISY, the talking book format. At present only 4% of books are available in accessible formats but with the publishing industry moving rapidly to using electronic source it is hoped that the percentage of accessible books will rise rapidly. To aid that process, Dolphin have developed Easy Converter that will convert original source into a variety of accessible formats including DAISY.

And just to show the range of technologies on show, Xerox had a stand where they displayed Xerox Copier Assistant, which improves the accessibility of photocopiers and printers, by displaying the controls on a PC rather than the small built in touch screen.

Delegates: The only thing that has not changed from two years is the disappointing lack of delegates from the private sector. If I exclude vendors and sponsors of the conference then there appeared to be only 4 delegates, out of more than 100, from the private sector. I hope that there will be a better turnout next year.