In March 2023, the Board of Directors of the Japan Publishing Organization for Information Infrastructure Development (JPO) approved the establishment of the Accessible Books Support Center (ABSC). The ABSC Preparatory Committee, which had been working towards the establishment of the ABSC, was approved to officially become a division of the JPO organization. The creation of a dedicated ABSC website was also agreed.
The ABSC aims to achieve a society in which more people regardless of their physical ability can gain access to publications, and to take various initiatives to bridge the gap between the publishing world and people with disabilities. In the paragraphs that follow we will look back at the history that led to the establishment of the ABSC, and explain its role, the policies it plans to implement and what it aims to achieve.
In response to the enforcement of the Act on Promoting Improved Reading Environments for the Visually Impaired (also known as the Reading Barrier-Free Act) in June 2019, the Japan Book Publishers Association established in January 2021 the Accessible Books Committee (AB Committee). As a result of its deliberations, the AB Committee in collaboration with the JPO decided to establish a new organization (later to become the ABSC) to support publishers working towards a barrier-free reading environment.
Subsequently, in June 2021, the JPO General Assembly approved preparations for the establishment of the ABSC, and the first meeting of the ABSC Preparatory Committee was held on September 22 of the same year. It should be noted that even after JPO’s establishment of the ABSC Preparatory Committee, members of the Japan Book Publishers Association’s AB Committee continued to work in collaboration with the aforementioned JPO committee.
ABSC’s objectives are to improve the reading environment for people with reading disabilities and to support publishers’ efforts towards accessibility, which are also the objectives of the following treaties and laws.
June 2013
Enactment of the Act on the Elimination of Discrimination against Persons with Disabilities (also known as the Disabilities Discrimination Act)
April 2016
Enforcement of the Disabilities Discrimination Act
January 2019
Enforcement of the Marrakesh Treaty in Japan
(This treaty, adopted by the World Intellectual Property Organization (WIPO) in 2013, aims to improve the reading environment for people with reading disabilities around the world.)
June 2019
Enforcement of the Act on Promoting Improved Reading Environments for the Visually Impaired (also known as the Reading Barrier-Free Act)
May 2021
Revision of the Disabilities Discrimination Act (legal obligation to provide reasonable accommodation)
Despite publishers’ desire to reach as many readers as possible with their publications, there are people in society who struggle to read and communicate due to various disabilities. ABSC’s role is to identify what the publishing industry can do to help these people reduce their difficulties in gaining access to publications, and to support publishers in this endeavor
At present, there is some debate about the commercial viability of supporting publishing accessibility, and concerns about providing text data requested by volunteers who support people with disabilities due to the risk of data leakage. The ABSC welcomes all opinions and ideas, and is willing to examine them together from a variety of perspectives.
For example, on the subject of whether supporting publishing accessibility is commercially viable, if accessibility is perceived solely as a means of helping people with reading disabilities, then generating revenue to the extent of a fully-fledged commercial activity may be difficult. If that’s the case, why not consider supporting accessibility as an opportunity to expand the market?
Requests from people with disabilities and volunteers to enhance publications’ accessibility (for example, by increasing text annotations or using words that are less likely to be misheard when the texts is read aloud) can easily be met by editors, while also contributing to expand the number of non-disabled readers.
Another straightforward way for publishers to support accessibility is to provide text-to-speech (TTS) functionalities for e-books. The Japan Publication Registry Office (JPRO) plans to display information on e-books with TTS functionalities in Books, a portal site which is conceived as a basic book catalog open to the general public. The more information is made available on the Books portal, the more opportunities there will be for a wide use of this content by the general public. Giving readers the choice of reading publications in e-book format or using the TTS functionality to listen to publications at their leisure may lead to an increase in the number of general users. This flexibility seems even more important if Japan’s aging population is taken into consideration. In other words, e-book publishing and TTS functionalities will increase reading options for the general public, whether disabled or not. This may lead to the expansion of the market not only for books in print format, but also for e-books, which in turn could encourage efforts to produce and sell such books.
In addition, although conditional upon the contract for each work, it is also true that the ability to provide text data would facilitate the creation of Braille books and the transliteration of content and therefore, reduce the burden on volunteers and other producers.
One solution is to include a “text data request coupon” in the copyright page. This method enables publishers to know whether the requester corresponds to the purchaser of this publication, and to decide whether or not to supply the text data requested. The spontaneous increase of such publications is highly desirable.
We believe creating an environment in which companies wishing to supply text data can do so with confidence is to be considered a major goal for the ABSC.
We believe that if we can deepen mutual understanding by providing in the ABSC reports and other publications described below concrete examples in response to these various opinions and ideas, we can discover new possibilities for publishing accessibility. This will certainly contribute to the development of a positive environment for accessible publishing.
In any case, the ABSC does not wish to influence the decisions of publishers, authors, volunteers and other support groups, but proposes to expand the traditional role of publishing and offer opportunities to explain and discuss accessibility. We’d like to gradually expand understanding and empathy toward people with disabilities, and we believe that this process of expansion itself gives meaning to our activities.
Many publishers are already striving to make their publications accessible, and many people with disabilities place their trust in these activities. Slow but steady progress is being made towards publishing accessibility.
There’s no doubt that when it comes to putting accessibility into practice, many obstacles arise. And to overcome them, the ABSC believes it’s necessary to learn about and reflect on the realities of people with reading difficulties.
Let’s take the example of the psychological conflict (perceived distance) between disabled and non-disabled people. Faced with an accessible service, it’s possible that a kind of reluctance may arise on the part of the disabled user to express their dissatisfaction to the non-disabled provider of the service. For example, “I’m a little dissatisfied with this service (this opportunity), but since this was thought especially for me, if I mention my dissatisfaction, I’ll be perceived as selfish.” Or “If I refuse this service, the person who has been so kind to offer it to me may hesitate to reach out the next time.” On the other hand, the non-disabled party may think: “I want to communicate with disabled people and offer them this service because I care about them, but this help may be perceived as an unnecessary burden.” Or “I think I should treat disabled people as naturally as possible, but those around me may think I’m not considerate enough.” Or “To be honest, offering help is simply too bothersome…” Of course, these attitudes depend on individual personality traits, but there are psychological conflicts that can ascribed to people being hesitant, timid, reserved, patient, worried, considerate or feeling superfluous. However, if these psychological conflicts prevent people from using or improving services, there is nothing to be gained from them.
According to Marcel Nuss, himself a disabled person with spinal muscular atrophy, “You’re not born disabled, you become so through the eyes of others.”[1] So the awareness, attitudes and language of non-disabled people can also be a psychological barrier for disabled people.
Only by understanding the realities of these psychological conflicts and barriers between disabled and non-disabled people can we begin to think about what a truly meaningful approach to accessibility might look like. These psychological conflicts do not only occur between disabled and non-disabled people, but are a universal issue that can arise at any time in interpersonal relationships, for example between the elderly and the young, or between supervisors and subordinates in a company.
How can we reduce these psychological conflicts and barriers? More frequent encounters between disabled and non-disabled people will of course result in a higher degree of familiarity. But what we think is most important is to acquire the psychological maturity to understand disabilities through words and text, and to feel empathy towards people with disabilities.
Today’s society is largely built on the premise of visual and oral communication. However, in terms of accessibility, it’s in this context that barriers for people with disabilities reside, because there are things that non-disabled people can’t see because they can see, and things they can’t hear because they can hear.
In order to recognize and reflect on these barriers, it is important to acquire knowledge and foresight by reading relevant publications, as well as by interacting with disabled people. The publishing industry has a lot to contribute, and ABSC would like to appeal to it by implementing various policies.
The ABSC produces and distributes reports with the aim of deepening mutual understanding between the publishing community and people with reading difficulties. The first issue was published as the Report of the ABSC Preparatory Committee in June 2022, and the second issue in January 2023.
The aim of these reports is to deepen the understanding and knowledge of accessibility among publishers, authors and the printing industry, and at the same time to communicate the publishing industry’s efforts to people with disabilities, volunteers and support groups.
The first issue presents the example of a publisher who, for over ten years, has included “text data request coupon” in the copyright page of their publications, and provided a downloadable template in the e-mail response to a data request. We also visited publishers of Braille books and audiobooks to interview them about their Braille translation sites, which subsequently enabled us to include in the report an article informing publishers about the provision of text data to support groups in order to produce Braille content more quickly, reducing the burden on producers.
In the second issue, we published statistical data on the number of visually impaired people in Japan, as well as the results of a survey on accessible publications and where they can be obtained. We have also addressed the situation of publishers who wish to provide text data but are unable to do so, and have included articles providing these publishers with examples and advice on how to proceed, as well as coverage of support groups such as the DAISY Consortium and SAPIE.
Starting with the third issue, we will also be reporting on the progress made by the TTS working group, which was set up to examine and improve TTS functionalities to ensure a certain degree of accessibility, even in the current situation where it takes time for publishers to provide accurate text data. We will also continue to publish articles designed to help non-disabled people understand disabilities, particularly the types of disabilities that hinder reading and communication, along with other visual impairments.
The JPO-managed JPRO system is used by over 2,600 publishers as of April 2023. Bibliographic information, book covers, information regarding promotion and distribution sent by these publishers are processed in an integrated way and made available to recipient companies at 9:00 and 15:00 every day. With over 3.6 million registered items, information about hundreds of recent publications is accumulated every day and used by distributors, bookstores and libraries to streamline transportation, pre-order sales, stock evaluations and book selection. From November 2021, it has also become possible to record magazine information and for bookshops and libraries to use this information via the BooksPRO portal. Online bookstores and book information websites can also use this as the source data for their bibliographic information.
The JPO also provides the Books portal based on information in the JPRO system which allows readers to consult basic bibliographic information.
The addition of information about accessibility to this JPRO-recorded data means improving the system so that users can check which media a book can be read on or whether the e-book version is TTS-compatible directly on the Books portal, without having to ask the publisher. The Books portal is also already compliant with web accessibility standards, but we will continue to make improvements to the site while working with users to further enhance accessibility.
How should we raise people’s awareness that accessibility will be in the future an integral part of working in publishing?
We think the first thing to do is to include information about accessibility in training textbooks for newcomers to the publishing profession. This will naturally increase the number of publishers thinking about accessibility.
We would also like to ask publishing researchers, in cooperation with the Japan Society of Publishing Studies and others, to add or revise descriptions of accessibility in published literature. Definitions of conventional publishing concepts should perhaps also be taken into account.
While working towards publishing accessibility, the ABSC aims to build an archive of useful information. The archive will be organized into the three areas described below.
(i) Archive of documents
(ii) Archive of case studies
(iii) Archive of material and information
We have herewith described the history that led to the establishment of ABSC, its role and policies. However, working on publishing accessibility is not just about addressing the persisting issues between disabled and non-disabled people. We believe ABSC’s role is to work towards a society and a reading environment that is friendly to all people, regardless of differences in age, gender, nationality, social status or any other factor. Various industries are already tackling this challenge, including the automotive, tourism and fashion industries. So what role can the publishing industry play in achieving this goal? The ABSC will continue to think and learn about these issues alongside the general public and work towards a society in which everyone can easily gain access to publications. We sincerely appreciate your understanding and cooperation.
[1] From Psychologie des beaux et des moches, Jean-François Marmion (author/editor). Japanese version (Pan Rolling, Inc., 2021) translated by Keiko Kanemaru, p. 165.