newspaper website offering a braille-friendly file?

Hi All,

I just visited the Casper Wyoming Star Tribune website to read an article:
http://www.casperstartribune.net/articles/2004/09/18/news/world/e02dbc17c32c
b50c87256f1200831338.txt.  

At the bottom of the article were 3 links: "email this story", "printable
version", and "braille file".  The last was explained thus: "This will
download to your computer a computer braille ASCII file of the current story
translated into grade 2 braille. This file may be sent to any standard
braille embosser."

I was astonished, and downloaded the file.  I can't vouch for the Grade 2
accuracy, but it certainly looks appropriate.  The filename is
'braille.brl', which isn't too helpful (to me at least, with the.brl
extension).  But overall, it seems like an amazing step forward, and a
candidate for Best Practice.

Can anyone enlighten me on how this service came to be?  I'm less interested
in the technology of generating a Grade 2 braille file than in the process
whereby a smallish paper came to provide this option.  Apologies if this
kind of service is common; I've never seen it on a newspaper site.

*****
Jim Tobias
Inclusive Technologies
tobias@inclusive.com
732.441.0831 v/tty
www.inclusive.com

Received on Saturday, 18 September 2004 16:13:36 UTC