MEDIBUS is an organisation of talking book and Braille libraries in German speaking countries, which have established a cooperative project for the production and distribution of standardised DAISY contents.
Presently there are over 25,000 titles available, produced by the member organisations. By 2010 the number of titles will be 30,000 and the distribution service of audio cassettes will come to an end. Additionally, MEDIBUS is going to develop a cooperation with the German Association of publishers, to increase the number of available books for people with reading disabilities.
DZB is a member of MEDIBUS.
It is the oldest German Public Library Service for the Blind and is now changing from a Special Library into a Centre for Accessible Media Design. Milestones of the DZB’s history are:
MEDIBUS is coordinating the production of accessible books for all the German speaking countries. As well as for the DAISY Consortium, the ultimate vision of MEDIBUS is that all books in every library should be available in DAISY format. MEDIBUS has the following goals:
To unify the production and distribution of DAISY books in all German speaking countries, MEDIBUS is developing guidelines, which will be used in all organisations. The guidelines have the following main chapters:
Currently the first version of guidelines is under review and a new version will be available in spring 2009.
Due to the demand of the users, MEDIBUS endeavors to establish this service. There are technical, judicial, and organizational questions which have to be answered. Secure Online DAISY Book Distribution includes the following topics:
By following these items MEDIBUS is currently negotiating with the German Association of Publishers to undertake the development of online distribution services according to copyright law.
DaCapo and DaCapo II, founded by the Federal Ministry for Work and Social Health, are projects to improve access to music scores for blind people: Project goals:
The »Symposium on Braille Music Notes« is a conference on Braille music notation. It will be held on November 13th and 14th at DZB Leipzig. The conference will focus on discussing current questions of software development, cooperation with publishers and teaching of Braille music. More information is available at: www.dzb.de/dacapo/
Libreka! founded by the German Association of publishers, is providing an internet-based platform to make content available in a digital format.
German Publishers use Libreka! to provide a full text search into all books, published by the member organizations.
MEDIBUS is planning to cooperate with Libreka!, to establish a workflow to further develop the preparation process of accessible books in Germany. The aims of a new project are:
Thomas Kahlisch became blind when he was 14 years old. He studied computer science at the universities of Dresden and Karlsruhe. The PhD thesis he wrote is about the field of human computer interaction.
Since 1999 Dr. Thomas Kahlisch is the director of the German Central Library of the Blind in Leipzig [DZB]. The DZB, founded in 1894, is the oldest public library service for blind and visually impaired persons in Germany.
He is member of the board of MEDIBUS [Mediengemeinschaft für blinde und sehbehinderte Menschen e. V.], the associations for the special library services in Germany, and a member of the board of the German association of blind and visually impaired persons DBSV [Deutscher Blinden- und Sehbehinderten-Verband e. V.].
Dr. Thomas Kahlisch is involved in a lot of DAISY working groups and activities. He has published many articles in the field of accessibility and improving access to information for persons with disabilities.
2008 he started working as the Secretary of the IFLA Libraries for the Blind Section.