Reading Rights Coalition,-protests disabled text to speech on Kindle 2

Dear Friends and Neighbors,

Over the past few weeks, I have been organizing with colleagues from around the country to ensure that Amazon's Kindle 2 is accessible to people with print disabilities. (I am a founding member of one organization (Assn on Higher Education and Disability) and president of another (International Dyslexia Association-NY Branch). The Reading Rights Coalition is engaged in a campaign to obtain access for the blind and others with print disabilities to e-books available for Amazon’s new Kindle 2 e-book reader. The new reader, which Amazon is working to make fully accessible, has the ability to use text-to-speech to read these e-books aloud; but under pressure from the Authors Guild, Amazon has announced that authors and publishers will be allowed to disable the text-to-speech function.

This is very unfortunate because Text-To-Speech opens the world of books, magazines, newspapers, and other print media to children and adults with disabilities such as vision impairments, learning disabilities, paralysis, traumatic and other brain injuries. Current alternatives, such as Recordings for the Blind and Dyslexic cannot meet the need because that technology is far too limited in selection and timeliness of production. Technologically, once text has been digitized, it’s digitized. The reader’s choice of media format (print image or audio) is merely a matter of display option – not a different product.

Over 25 organizations have joined to form the Reading Rights Coalition, which has set up an on-line petition to urge the Authors Guild and Amazon to reverse course. Visit www.readingrights.org to learn more about our work and see our Open Letter to Authors. We’ve scheduled an informational picket in front of the Authors’ Guild, 31 East 32nd Street in Manhattan, next Tuesday, April 7th from 12:00 to 2:00 pm.

Please read and sign our petition here: http://www.thepetitionsite.com/1/We-Want-To-Read

Please note: If you are using screen access technology, the first three fields on the form to sign the petition may not be announced. They are, in order: (1) a drop-down menu from which to select your prefix (Mr., Mrs., etc.); (2) an edit field for your first name, and (3) an edit field for your last name. The rest of the fields should announce themselves as you tab to them.

We hope you can join us. In the meantime, join the Reading Rights Coalition Group, http://www.facebook.com/photos.php?id=67290717289#/pages/Reading-Rights-Coalition/67290717289?ref=mf .

Then sign the petition site http://www.thepetitionsite.com/1/We-Want-To-Read, and forward to everyone in your network.

If you use Twitter, please tweet the information as well!