About the APH Accessible Textbooks Department
Strategic Vision:
A Textbook Division of APH will effectively respond to the textbook needs of blind and visually impaired students by delivering custom-produced accessible textbooks in a variety of media in a timely manner.
The APH Accessible Textbook Department (formerly the Project ATIC) is the embodiment of the American Printing House for the Blind's (APH) commitment to provide accessible textbooks to students who are blind or visually impaired.
Background
In previous years, the practice has been for APH to produce a range of specific textbook titles selected by the Ex Officio Trustee Publications Committee. These titles have been produced, cataloged, and made available for educators to purchase for their blind and visually impaired students. The complexity of this task lay largely in garnering the resources to produce the needed textbooks.
In recent years, however, this task has been drastically complicated by changes in the ways textbooks are designed, selected, and used in general education. New requirements have been created by extensive changes in educational service delivery models and the widespread use of whole language instruction, as well as societal factors such as education reform and site-based management. Now, instead of predetermining the titles it will produce and offer, APH is faced with the task of providing accessible versions of the books that are used by each blind student's sighted classmates. This requires the adaptation of a vast number of different textbooks, with very little lead-time to produce them. Obviously, the traditional methods for selecting and producing accessible books no longer meet student needs or the requirements of their educational programs.
To effectively address this dilemma, APH has renewed our commitment by establishing the Accessible Textbook Department. Through it, we revamped our existing structures and created new systems to provide accessible textbooks in an expanded variety of media in a customer-responsive manner. In addition to traditional hard copy textbooks, this commitment provides textbooks through on-demand transcription or enlargement as well as in electronic media that can be downloaded from the APH file repository on our website.
Goals of the Accessible Textbooks Department
Textbooks are produced in:
- Braille
- Hardcopy
- Electronic files for embossing
- Downloadable files from our website
- Large print books in standard textbook size and in color
- Hardcopy
- Electronic files for customizing of point size and font
- Downloadable files from our website
- Audio
- Synthetic speech
- Digital files of human voice
- Linear Braille and additional media as technology develops
Related Pages
Contact ATIC:
For more information please contact:
Jane Thompson, Director, APH Accessible Textbooks Department
American Printing House for the Blind
1839 Frankfort Ave.
Louisville, KY 40206-0085
502-895-2405
800-223-1839
atic@aph.org
jthompson@aph.org