DAISY
DASIY
Did you know that daisy’s are not only a little flower that we probably all have memories of making chains with in our youth but also a way for blind, partially sighted and learning disabled people to access books and other printed materials.
I have heard all about how great DAISY format books are but until yesterday I had never seen, or rather heard for my self. In my opinion this is quite possibly one of the greatest inventions ever to enable print disabled people to access books.
One of the reasons the DAISY format is so good is that it allows the user to navigate through the book by chapter, page or even subheading depending on the books structure, just like a fully sighted person would navigate a book. This is particularly useful if the book that is being read is non-fiction and you are looking for a specific piece of information.
Another really good function of the DAISY format is that it allows the user to place numbered bookmarks in to the text so you can go back to your favourite section again without spending ages fiddling around.
The DAISY play that my dad brought me is a very compact and recent model called the Victor reader WAVE and it is really good.
The only slight downside to all this is that I haven’t quite got enough money to join the RNIB’s talking book library but I will get some books eventually.
When I do have the money to join the library I will have over 32000 different books to read, this is great. Reading weather it be visual or audio is something I really enjoy and I have been trapped unable to access the book with excellent reviews that everyone is going on about, soon this won’t be a problem.
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I've been using DAISY for nearly four years - since the format was introduced in the Netherlands. My DAISY player is really old, so it doesn't have very good navigation, but for my reading use, it's fine, since I don't read all that much.
Hello Jemma,
I take it your Local Authority is not one of those that will pay for RNIB Talking Books subscriptions then?
It's good you're discovering how useful DAISY is, and it is good with the features you're describing. But I also find it quite frustrating because DASY is capable of much more than audio - it has the capability to give us access to the actual text of the book as well, but I'm yet to come across a book that actually allows this. That would be really useful for non fiction books, especially if we're studying/researching and therefore need access to the text for spelling, making notes, selecting/copying/pasting etc. For those purposes I even prefer scanning to listening to audio, despite the extra time it takes.
the problem i have with scanning is that my scanner is pants!
unfortunatly our social services will only pay for it if i was 90 and unable to leave the house!
Hi,
I get magazines on tape that get sent through the post. You might have already heard about it. They're provided by the national talking newspaper association. You have to pay, but the price isn't too expensive. They also talk about the daisy player and daisy subscription. Maybe that could be something to look in to?
Hope this is a bit useful!
xxx
Thanks for all the replys with info, im currently reading my first book in DAISY format "the sheep who changed the world" its really good!