Re: reasonable accomodation? (was Re: single browser intranets)

I hate to sound a death knell, but charging the same for a disk as for
a hard copy is not exactly fair.  after all, with the hcopy, you get
all that paper and stuff.  with a disk, if you need it for access, all
you really get is the text and no paper to smell and lick and rub
etc.  Part of this is toungue in cheek.  I proppose that a person
needing an accessible version of a book be required to provide proof
of purchase of the hcopy and receive the the ecopy for free as
valuadded to the book which they could not use in the first place or
be able to directly purchase the ecopy for a lower cost which is what
has been don in some instances.
Kynn Bartlett wrote:
> 
> At 04:19 PM 10/26/1999 -0500, David Poehlman wrote:
> >just to add to this.  if you think for a second that scanning hard
> >copy and performing ocr on it is an ideal, think again.
> 
> I'm always amazed by companies that don't provide electronic copies
> upon demand -- because in this day and age, ALL documents are, in
> their original formats, electronic!  You don't _have_ paper-only
> documents being created anymore; everything is done in Word or
> Excel or some other electronic format.
> 
> Recently the HWG received a proposal via fax from a potential strategic
> partner.  The fax was clearly a powerpoint presentation that was
> "printed" -- as I needed to distribute the proposal to my board, and
> we "meet" via email, I asked for a copy of the PPT file.  It was
> denied -- instead he wanted to fax it to all of us!  Why, I'm not
> sure -- but I still stand by my conviction that since documents are
> natively electronic, there's no reason NOT to provide them electronically.
> 
> A nicer story from the HWG relates to the book we use in our HTML
> 4.0 online class, written by Ann Navarro and published by Sybex.  One
> of our students is blind and thus can't just use the printed version;
> we contacted Sybex and found that for the same price as the printed
> book, an electronic version on disk could be purchased, as long as a
> non-disclosure agreement (NDA) was signed.  The reason for the NDA
> is that it's easier to create a new version of the book from the
> electronic copy than the dead tree version.
> 
> This was a fortunate surprise for us in the Guild, because now we can
> feel a little better about offering online classes and knowing that
> there are alternatives to our required textbook that can be used by
> students who require electronic copies.
> 
> --
> Kynn Bartlett <kynn@hwg.org>
> President, Governing Board Member
> HTML Writers Guild <URL:http://www.hwg.org>
> Director, Accessible Web Authoring Resources and Education Center
>   <URL:http://aware.hwg.org/>

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Received on Tuesday, 26 October 1999 18:13:36 UTC