Convergence in Electronic Libraries, Cultural Heritage and Service Provision for Print Disabled People: Austrian Literature Online (ALO)

Digitisation is one key objective at the beginning of the information society. More and more efforts are spent to make documents usable on computers and via the Internet. This also addresses a major need of print disabled people. Access to docments in digital format is the prerequisite to be able to apply assistive technology to get access to documents at the Human Computer Interface (HCI). This paper presents the initiative "Austrian Literature Online" and how this project addresses the needs of print disabled people. A virtual library system was developed for presentation and preservation purposes of old literature. This system and the documents handled are designed according to the needs of print disabled people. Research was done on a more efficient and cost effective workflow management in digitisation. Till now copyright free literature has been made available in accessible formats. The system is also developed further to provide blind and visually handicapped students a convenient access to study literature.