Asexual media in accessible formats

[teafeather]

This morning I decided to look for Anthony Bogaert's "Understanding Asexuality" in a format I can read and was disappointed to find that it's not scheduled to be produced in braille or audio by NLS and no one has submitted it to Bookshare.org. As it's an academic-leaning text it might eventually end up at Learning Ally but I can't afford $120 for membership there (plus however much they're charging for a DRM key these days) for just one book. I could buy the ebook but I try to avoid DRM'd ebooks as much as possible, and they don't work with a lot of screen readers or braille displays.

None of the rental options for the documentary "(A)sexual" indicate whether or not they have captions available, and I've not seen anything about DVD availability.

People who can't access standard print or spoken language deserve access to these materials too.

Comments

[codeman38]

I can confirm that the iTunes rental of (A)Sexual is definitely captioned.

Edited to add: Indeed, iTunes seems to be the only option that offers captioning. The Google Play and Amazon rentals do not indicate captioning for the movie, and those services usually specify it within the product information when it's available. I have no idea about Xbox or PlayStation, but those services don't have good track records with captioning even on mainstream films.

[teafeather]

Thank you!

[metapianycist]

It is worth noting that Understanding Asexuality is available for the Amazon Kindle, and all second-generation-and-beyond Kindle devices have text-to-speech capabilities, if that is an option for you.

[greenchestnuts]

Is there any kind of advocacy we could undertake-- letter-writing, making phone calls, etc-- so that this book gets produced in Braille and audio?

[teafeather]

There are a few options, but all of them will have limits on who will be able to access them.

A commercial audio production is unlikely because there probably isn't enough commercial demand.

Probably the easiest route to having it in an accessible format would be for someone to submit it to Bookshare.org, but the copyright exception that allows Bookshare.org to operate only allows U.S. residents to access the materials. Technically anyone can order an embossed-on-demand braille copy of any Bookshare.org book if it has an "excellent" OCR quality rating but it's expensive.

Someone who is a university student in the U.S. who needed an accessible copy could request that it be transcribed or recorded by their state agency for the blind, but there's generally only one copy produced and it would only be available to the student who requested it.

The titles produced by NLS (the U.S. national library service for the blind and a limited range of other disabilities) are decided upon by a committee but I don't know how someone not on that committee would be able to petition the committee to consider a title. And, again, these materials would only be available to U.S. residents or to citizens abroad. They used to do international interlibrary loans but I don't think they can do that any more with audiobooks since the transition to digital and the fact that they're actually legally required to use a DRM scheme that is incompatible with other countries.

There are a few other nonprofit organizations that produce accessible materials but they tend to be for a specific religious group (such as Christian Record Service and the Jewish Guild for the Blind) or political organization. I don't know of any organization that provides accessible materials for gender and sexual minorities (although Bookshare.org has a good selection of user-submitted GSM materials).