Rosstandart has approved new national standards: GOST R 59224-2020, Digital «talking» book for the blind and visually impaired. Technical requirements, and GOST R 59222-2020, Online library of digital «talking» books for the blind and visually impaired. Technical requirements.
The documents come into force for the first time on June 1, 2021. Developed by "STANDARTINFORM" and LLC Electronics Laboratory "ElecGest" as part of TC 381 "Technical means and services for persons with disabilities and other low mobility persons" (TC 381), the secretariat of which is maintained by "STANDARTINFORM".
As part of the "accessible environment" development the emergence of digital talking-books can hardly be overestimated. The widespread introduction of modern digital technologies significantly expands the possibilities of receiving information through the auditory channel. A talking-book is a sound recording of an ordinary (flat-printed) edition, which is read out by speakers or professional readers and replicated in a small volume for the blind readers of special libraries. Analysis of the experience of foreign manufacturers' devices in the use of digital talking-books has led to an understanding of the need to increase the number of services that provide online information, as well as standardization of the basic production and distribution of digital talking-books and their online libraries.
GOST R 59224-2020, Digital «talking» book for the blind and visually impaired. Technical requirements, applies to digital talking-books recorded on flash cards, and/or placed in digital libraries for the blind and visually impaired people. The standard provides technical requirements for flash cards containing the book and their dimensions. The use of microSD, microSDHC, microSDXC cards with an adapter for recording digital talking-books is not allowed because of the inconvenience for a blind or visually impaired person.
The standard divides the digital talking-books into basic and advanced books. The first ones include speech recordings of literary fiction, popular science, philosophical, historical, spiritual and educational works, periodicals, recordings of plays, etc. The second type includes records of educational, scientific, methodological and reference literature. The extended profile digital book differs from the basic profile book in the parameters of audio files and the presence of a markup file, which is a database with the contents of the mandatory tables: metadata, fragments, navigation levels and markups.
GOST R 59222-2020, Online library of digital «talking» books for the blind and visually impaired. Technical requirements, establishes requirements for managing the content of an online library of talking-books. According to the standard, the online library of digital talking-books is a digital library with limited access, which is provided free of charge for the visually impaired persons after presenting appropriate documents, as well as persons with disabilities of other categories, who due to the sum of the impairments of various body systems have trouble with reading printed materials. At the same time, the formation of the library fund, its storage and updating is ensured.
Special services are used to create and manage the collection, as well as to serve library users, which ensure the work of administrators and librarians with it by using the web-interface, as well as the readers themselves, not only by using the web-interface, but also by using the typhloflash players and mobile digital devices with special software. At the same time, each reader is authenticated and can view information about the book, download it from and add or delete it from the bookshelf. In addition, the new standard contains requirements for the quality of a digital talking book and describes the main functions of the administrator, librarian and reader interfaces.
Due to the complex application of GOST R 59224-2020 and GOST R 59222-2020 in conjunction with the previously adopted national standard GOST R 58510-2019, Special devices for reading "talking books" on flash cards. Technical requirements and test methods, a unified ecosystem for the visually impaired and blind people is formed, which allows by providing increased independent access to information resources to achieve an increased rehabilitation effect and, as a consequence, a significant increase in the quality of their lives.
(According to the Rosstandart website)