Championing Accessibility: An Interview with ABC Award Winner, Round Table on Information Access

The Round Table on Information Access for People with Print Disabilities has been at the forefront of promoting accessibility in publishing in Australia and New Zealand. Recently, they won the 2024 ABC International Excellence Award for Accessible Publishing in the “Initiative” category. In this interview with Sonali Marathe, President of the Round Table, we delve into their mission, challenges, and innovative approaches to ensure equal access to information for people with print disabilities.

 

Can you introduce the Round Table on Information Access for People with Print Disabilities and its main mission?

The Round Table is a member-led organization that includes government bodies, educational institutions, disability organizations, publishers, and web companies. It was established in 1981 with a focus on ensuring quality alternative formats are available to those who need them.

Our main objective is to foster cooperation and resource sharing while setting standards and guidelines to improve accessibility. Our initiatives are broad, spanning publishers, governments, consumers, and disability organizations. We develop guidelines for accessible formats—such as braille, large print, e-text, and audio—and provide training for publishers, educators, and disability organizations.

The Marrakesh Treaty was a turning point, showing us the potential to influence publishers in Australia and New Zealand. We helped found the Australian Inclusive Publishing Initiative (AIPI) and collaborated with the Institute of Professional Editors Limited to emphasize the importance of accessible publishing. We’ve also worked with the Copyright Agency of Australia to create guidelines for accessible publishing.

We support research too. Publishers need to understand that creating accessible books is not just ethical but profitable. We developed a business case to demonstrate this.

Access to books is a fundamental right for people with print disabilities. It’s essential for education, social interaction, leisure, employment, and independence. Our guidelines are available across Australia, New Zealand, and the Pacific nations, and we’re committed to fostering accessibility in all areas of publishing.

What are the key challenges that people with print disabilities face when accessing information, and how does your organization address them?

One of the biggest challenges is in education. Students often receive plain image PDFs without image descriptions or text that can be extracted to other accessible programs. This creates barriers to learning and employability.

For leisure, the issue is simply the right to read and enjoy books. We’ve addressed these challenges by engaging the entire publishing ecosystem in Australia and New Zealand, including publishers, authors, illustrators, and editors. Notably, we developed guidelines for illustrators to create accessible illustrations, ensuring that visuals are also inclusive.

What innovative technologies or approaches have you seen making the most significant impact in improving information access for people with print disabilities?

Assistive technologies have been transformative. Tools like screen readers, eBook readers, and braille displays have made a huge difference. Everyday devices, such as smartphones and their voice-activated assistants, also play a role in improving accessibility.

We’re collaborating with national libraries to ensure accessibility metadata—information about the formats a book is available in—is captured. This makes it easier for people with print disabilities to discover accessible books in libraries near them.

AI has also been a game changer. A visually impaired colleague of mine recently started using advanced smart glasses, which can read text aloud. She told me that she’d sometimes miss the bus because she couldn’t tell which passing bus was hers, but now, the glasses can read the number on the bus for her commute. These glasses have revolutionized how she navigates daily life and can make a huge difference for others as well.

With these advancements in technology, how do copyright frameworks ensure a balance between accessibility and content creator rights?

We want to reassure authors and publishers that we respect their rights. In Australia, we’ve built partnerships with publishing associations, through which all Round Table members are considered trusted entities. This means that when a publisher shares a book with a trusted entity, they guarantee that it cannot become commercially available. This partnership ensures legal protection for rights holders while enabling accessibility.

 

Congratulations on winning the ABC International Excellence Award! What does it mean to win such an award?

It’s deeply meaningful for everyone at the Round Table and our community. Round Table is a voluntary organization, so all our guidelines, conferences, and initiatives are the result of dedicated voluntary work.

This award is a recognition of years of hard work and commitment. It gives us the strength to continue advocating for accessibility and making a difference in the lives of people with print disabilities.
 

Background

According to a 2017 study published in The Lancet, approximately 253 million people are blind or visually impaired world-wide. Nearly 90% of these are resident in developing countries, where the World Blind Union (WBU) estimates that people who are blind have only a one in ten chance of going to school or getting a job. A lack of accessible books remains a very real barrier to getting an education and leading an independent, productive life.

About ABC

The Accessible Books Consortium (ABC) is a public-private partnership led by WIPO that, together with its many partners around the world, has had real impact over the past decade. Since its inception, the ABC Global Book Service catalogue has quadrupled in size to over one million titles thanks to the inclusion of the collections of participating authorized entities. ABC delivered a total of 164,000 accessible digital files from the ABC catalogue to persons with print disabilities through its authorized entities in 2023. In addition, through ABC’s training and technical assistance partners, more than 20,000 textbooks have been made accessible in over 40 low-income countries, improving access to education for thousands of young people. ABC was established in June 2014 to implement the goals of the Marrakesh Treaty.

About WIPO

The World Intellectual Property Organization (WIPO) is the global forum for intellectual property policy, services, information and cooperation. A specialized agency of the United Nations, WIPO assists its 193 member states in developing a balanced international IP legal framework to meet society's evolving needs. It provides business services for obtaining IP rights in multiple countries and resolving disputes. It delivers capacity-building programs to help developing countries benefit from using IP. And it provides free access to unique knowledge banks of IP information.