I read a lot. I always have. But as my eyesight has deteriorated, I have had to find alternative ways to get my fix. Audiobooks have been key, mostly bought from Audible.com in recent years. Lately, smartphones and dedicated e-book readers have begun to offer an accessible alternative. There is still a big trade-off between content and accessibility. Over the years, I have accumulated many posts on the subject of building an accessible bookshelf. Here’s the card catalog:

e-Book Readers

• Kindle’s Crystal Ball: Accessible Navigation: Spotted on The Mac-cessibility Site, Anazon’s Kindle team is working on some accessibility improvements. The main focus seems to be on voice feedbac
• Petition to Make the Kindle Fully Accessible: A peeition to Make the Kindle 2 Fully Accessible has been started. “We, the undersigned, ask Amazon Technologies, Inc., and its affiliates, to modify the new …
• One Small Step Back for Amazon, One Giant Leap Backwards for Access: Today Amazon announced that it was surrendering to the Author’s Guild.
• Kindle sparks a flame war, but fails to light the fire for accessibility – AFB’s Blog: Following up on my rant against the Blount Op-Ed piece, the AFB has a well-written (much better than mine) blog post on the same issue: …
• Blount Bluntly Dismisses the Blind on the NYTimes’ Op-Ed Page: On today’s Op-Ed page in the New York Times, Roy Blount, Jr, head of the Author’s Guild, has penned a piece, The Kindle Swindle?, defending ..
• Kindle Controversy Catching Fire: The brouhaha over the new Kindle’s text-to-speech function possibly violating copyright has really caught fire. The issue hit the papers as well as the blogosphere. …
• Slashdot | Author’s Guild Says Kindle’s Text-To-Speech Software Illegal: Spotted on Slashdot, Author’s Guild Says Kindle’s Text-To-Speech Software Illegal. “The Author’s Guild claims that the new Kindle’s text-to-speech software is illegal, stating that “They …
• Read it to Me: Kindle 2.0 has Text-to-Speech: The NY Times, along with every other news source, is reporting on the new version of Amazon’s e-book reader, the Kindle.Buried among all the other …

iPhone e-Book Apps

• Shortcovers – How Accessible is this Kindle Competitor?: Shortcovers Main Page Shortcovers, the alleged Kindle killer, went live this morning. So what is shorcovers? It is a e-book service built around mobile devices. The …
• Accessible e-Reading: Google Books: Last week, Google announced that its Book Search would be available for iPhone and other mobile device users. I like to read, so I thought …
• Stanza – Accessible E-Book Reader for the iPhone: Scanning through the Personal Tech section of the Times, I bumped into an interesting tidbit, “Tip of the Week – Turn Your iPhone Into an …
• Will it Kill the Kindle?: Shortcovers will be an app for mobile devices, including the iPhone, that turns your device into an e-book reader. The release date is imminent (allegedly). …

Audiobooks

• iPod Shuffle has VoiceOver: Any Good for Audiobooks?: VoiceOver As you probably heard, this week Apple released its new Shiffie.  The key new accessibility feature is VoiceOver. Introducing VoiceOver. Musically speaking, the new iPod shuffle is …

• Audio Books – New York Times: According to the New York Times today, Audio Books are becoming both more popular and more acceptable to the reading purist. I hope this trend …

  A Site for Sore Ears: A Review and Tour of Audible.Com – AccessWorld – March 2005: AccessWorld has an updated review, A Site for Sore Ears: A Review and Tour of Audible.Com, of Audible.com. I know I have posted about the …

• Easy Reading with Audible.com: Many people have realized the convenience that audiobooks provide. Not only are they great for many handicapped people, but audiobooks can be helpful to just …

Miscellaneous Thoughts

• DRM, the Public Domain and Accessiblity: The Blind Flaneur makes an important point in a recent blog post, Preserving the Future’s Creative Raw Material in the Public Domain. These days, authors …