Schools Shun Kindle: eReader 'Discriminates' Against Blind, Colleges Say

SAN FRANCISCO — Amazon's Kindle can read books aloud, but if you're blind it can be difficult to turn that function on without help. Now two universities say they will shun the device until Amazon changes the setup.

The National Federation of the Blind announced Wednesday that the University of Wisconsin-Madison and Syracuse University in New York won't consider big rollouts of the electronic reading device unless Amazon makes it more accessible to visually impaired students.

Both schools have some Kindles that they bought for students to try this fall, but now they say they won't look into buying more unless Amazon makes changes to the device.

"These universities are saying, `Our policy is nondiscrimination, so we're not going to adopt a technology we know for sure discriminates against blind students,'" said Chris Danielsen, a spokesman for the National Federation of the Blind.

Amazon.com Inc. spokesman Drew Herdener said many visually impaired customers have asked Amazon to make the Kindle easier to navigate. The company is working on it, he said.

According to the National Federation of the Blind, there are about 1.3 million legally blind people in the U.S. Many more people have other disabilities such as dyslexia that make it difficult to read.

The Kindle could be promising for the visually impaired because of its read-aloud feature, which utters text in a robotic-sounding voice. For blind students in particular, the Kindle could be an improvement over existing studying techniques – such as using audio books or scanning books page by page into a computer so character-recognition software can translate it for a text-to-speech program.

But activating the Kindle's audio feature probably requires a sighted helper, because the step involves manipulating buttons and navigating choices in menus that appear on the Kindle's screen.

The federation says the device should be able to speak the menu choices as well.

Electronic books still make up a small portion of the overall book market, but it's a fast-growing segment. In hopes of getting even more people to try the Kindle, Amazon released the $489 Kindle DX this year, which has a large screen and is geared toward textbook and newspaper readers. The company then worked with several colleges to give out Kindles this fall with digital versions of their textbooks on them.

The Federation of the Blind sued one of the schools that participated in this pilot program – Arizona State University – in June, along with the American Council of the Blind and a blind ASU student, arguing it was discriminating against blind students. That case is ongoing.

The group also filed complaints with the Department of Justice against five other schools that are participating in the Kindle trial with Amazon. Wisconsin and Syracuse are not among those schools.

Ken Frazier, director of Wisconsin-Madison's library system, said the library bought 20 Kindle DX devices for use in a history class this fall. Though he's not sure how many blind students are at his school, he said many students have difficulties reading texts for various reasons, such as learning disabilities.

"Our experience is that when you make technology accessible, everybody benefits," he said.

Comments

[HeevenSteven]

Don't regular books have the same problem?

[vcrotty]

Vision impaired students currently use computers in which textbooks have been scanned, and the Kindle is much simpler. If only one book is downloaded at a time, and others kept in archives there should be no problem. Traditionally, a sighted student functions as an aide to the blind.

With textbooks costing $500-$1000 a semester, the Kindle is a good thing

I think that this whole thing is a ploy by the Federation of the Blind to look like they are doing something for their membership. They probably hope to increase fundraising.

[TheGripester]

The charge of "discrimination" implies an an intentional disregard for the needs of one specific group of people. There's nothing in this article to prove that. Perhaps it is felt that this level of accusation is necessary in order to move Kindle in the right direction - if so, it's regrettable. Nobody knows more than Amazon that there is a huge market out there in selling books to the blind, and I am sure that they have been working on making the Kindle more accessible to those consumers.

I had a student who was blind - she was able to surf the net and compose orchestral music with her computer. So Kindle can't be too far behind. Maybe they will eventually have a Braille keyboard and specialized voice menus, like many existing computer setups.

[rbryanh]

Having checked three dictionaries, I find no evidence that "discrimination" has to be intentional.

[TheGripester]

Come on now - read my words more carefully. Not the cold, bare skeleton of the word "discrimination," but "the charge" thereof, (as applied in a legal action or official condemnation) "implies an intentional disregard for the needs of one specific group of people." But you flatter me in having checked three dictionaries on behalf of my statement.

Instead of picking apart my words, though, maybe you have something to say to challenge my actual point? That there is nothing in the article that shows that Amazon intends to trample on the access or feelings of blind consumers? Was that the motivation behind your lexicographical investigation?

Intent is one of the prime factors in a case of discrimination, btw. Quite often, cases that cannot prove intent are thrown out of court, if they are even brought to trial. Hence my comment.

[Conk]

Just because the device is not perfect does not mean it's discriminatory. Jeez!

[Joel Redman]

Since it's replacing BOOKS, which already discriminate against blind people, I can't see what the issue is.

[rbryanh]

The issue here is the same as requiring renovations of existing buildings to be ADA compliant, or for that matter, to meet updated building codes. We don't allow replacement of inadequate structures with equally inadequate structures.

It's called "progress.­"

It's both ethical and pragmatic to require that new platforms offer broader accessibility, particularly when new technologies are in their infancy and it's easy and cheap to do so.

[condor101]

I think Schools are shunning the Kindle and other eReaders because it hurts their profits from bookstore sales. When I was in college, I had to buy new books because the publishers had made revised editions every year. This is a way for new books to be purchased, instead of re-sold to to incoming students. It's all a scam.
The publishers make a fortune and the school makes a huge profit on the backs of the students whom need to purchase these revised edition books.

With the onset of eReaders, students can bypass purchasing the books from the school and buy directly from the publisher. Schools will lose the sales from selling hardcover books.
Colleges make 100's of thousands of dollars in profits every semester from the sale of textbooks to their students. It's another means to squeeze every penny from students.

[Leefeller]

Will the real reason please stand up, instead of suing and the usual posturing, why cannot they tell the truth? Opportunism always seems to be the behind of the so common moon, appricated the post.

[Miriam Mogilevsky]

Planet Earth discriminates against blind people. It doesn't come with alt text.

[EmeraldWorld]

That's going overboard, isn't it? I can certainly understand the need for blind students to have accessible resources, but to say the Kindle is discriminatory against them? Perhaps a technological eReader that is more amenable to the blind students (and the blind population in general) can resolve this situation, but for now they should at least let the non-vision impaired students have a chance to use it.

[GeorgiaOnMyMind]

What imbecilic logic. Let's ban televisions, because even though blind people can hear them, they can't see them. Let's ban cars, because even though blind people can't use them to go anywhere without the assistance of sighted people driving, the blind can't drive themselves. This is American legal abuse at its WORST. Here is a helpful technology, and people are SO politically correct they want to ditch it. Don't they realize that Kindle.. like EVERY other new technology, has limitations? And like every other new technology, it will improve. But in the meantime, hey, let's ban iPods because the deaf people can't use them to listen to music even though they can use them to watch videos.

[StarDagger]

All the issues in this story aside, banning cars would be awesome, and mother earth would breathe a sigh of relief!

[rbryanh]

You've made a category error.

These schools aren't attempting to "ban" these devices from use. They're simply declining - as institutions - to standardize on a technology that violates their existing nondiscrimination statutes. This is no more unreasonable than refusing to construct non-ADA-compliant buildings. The only difference is that ADA is a Federal statute, and media accessibility for the blind is an institutional regulation.

They believe an institutional implementation of Kindle would render them vulnerable to both legal action and accusations of hypocrisy, and they're likely right.

[PlayTOE]

Being accessible to blind people requires a non-visual interface, and is quite unlike a view screen interface.

Expect a model for visually impaired to arrive, because it will.
But tossing out a good technology because it is limited is just silly.

[thinkingwomanmillstone]

How can they be against a Kindle? I am the mother of a disabled student. I wouldn't ban subjects that he can't understand. Are they going to ban print books because the blind can't use them. How about cars? The kindle can be adjusted so that the font is bigger. this helps visually impaired students. With all of the real issues that confront the disabled, why make one up? Lets ban Braille because the students who can't use their hands can't use it.

[shadowgm]

I think the complaint stems from the Kindle not being accessible to a visually-impaired user 'out of the box' - you need to navigate menus and press buttons that you either can't read well or are unable to see at all, and there's no voice-navigation option for the device.

It is not about the false comparison of print books vs. braille books, or any other technology. It is about the very sensible reservations about endorsing a technology/device that could be enhanced to better serve the vision-impaired community.

(Incidentally, and perhaps ironically, the ad generator at the top of this page produced an ad for the Amazon.com Kindle.)

[brady61995]

so if you are teaching blind people dont use it. not really a story as much as its not for everyone.

[rbryanh]

Are we going to ban certain uses of stairs in public buildings because they reduce the quality of life of wheelchair users?

You've confused "ban" with "decline to implement on an institutional scale." No one has been told they can't buy a Kindle - the school is simply not going to standardize on a platform that doesn't meet its accessibility standards.

The fact that we pragmatically accept that existing technologies (e.g., books) are less than ideal is no justification for accepting those same limitations on developing technologies, particularly when it's easy and cheap to make improvements.