The main goal of the Digital Books Library is to provide the disabled in vision students in the materials necessary for their learning by preparing and making them available in an electronic form (audio and text books). The materials are prepared on request of the students of the University of Warsaw within the framework of the Library’s activity and thanks to the help of volunteers. The Library also tries to obtain the electronic materials directly from the publishers.

The Digital Books Library is currently the only unit of such kind in Poland and it executes the mentioned tasks on requests from all over the country.

The Digital Books Library was initiated by the Office for People with Disabilities in November 1997. Nowadays it still is a unit of the University subordinate to the OPD. Initially the Library was called "The Spoken Book Library for the Blind People" and was located in the building of the Warsaw University Computer Center. Since August 2000, under its new name, it operates in the Library of the University of Warsaw’s building.

During the first years of the Library’s activity it was preoccupied only with storing and tape recording books. After the relocation in 2000, a digital sound recording and storing system was implemented, and so the duties of the Library were extended to the preparation of books in text version and to obtaining their digital formats directly from their publishers.

The modern sound recording system Libra has been tailored specifically to meet the Library’s needs. It is designed in resemblance to the world acknowledged DAISY system (about which you may read more here). Libra allows creating books in audio format, whilst preserving the book’s paper edition structure. During the recording elements like: pages, chapters and footnotes are indexed, which helps the reader in fast navigation through the recorded book. The reader receives his requested books (those prepared by the Library using the Libra system) on a CD, which he can only play on a computer. Thanks to the usage of a computer navigating to a chosen page or chapter can be done by the reader quickly and most importantly all on his own. The CD’s program enables listening to the text either with footnotes or with just the signalization of their appearance or simply without them at all. The minute one stops reading, the program bookmarks the page, and returns to it automatically when the reader opens the book again.

Books are recorded by volunteers, thus the text is pleasing to the ear, despite the compression of the sound. This format of books is most often chosen by the visually impaired readers, who are not as accustomed to synthetic speech.

The preparation of a book in text format consists either of obtaining it in this format directly from the publisher or scanning it by oneself and making the necessary corrections. The reader receives such a book in a .txt, .doc or .rtf file and can open it on his computer, using his own screen reader and his favorite speech synthesizer. Currently we do not give books of this type any structure and so the navigation is limited to moving around pages, or searching the text by entering keywords into the "Find" field of the text editor. The constant development and increasing popularity of mobile notetakers and notebooks, makes text books much preferred by blind people, who are accustomed to synthetic speech.

Volunteers play an important role in the process of audio and text books preparation. It is thanks to their work that the library exists and the students can receive ordered materials on time. Volunteers are found through advertising.

In order to meet the needs of the disabled in vision people the Library of the University of Warsaw has given them the use of two voice-based workstations in the hall. They are equipped with large monitors and have access to the Internet.

Moreover, there are two booths for individual work, with computers adjusted to the needs of people with low vision. Each has the JAWS screen reading software, a large monitor, a scanner with optical text recognition program FineReader, all other indispensable software and internet access. The additional equipment, depending on the booth, comprises of either a Braille printer or a Braille monitor. Visually impaired people also have two text enlargers (a TV one and an enlarger working with a computer) at their disposal. One of them is located in the hall, and the other is placed in a booth for individual work.

One can use these facilities during the University’s Library Opening hours. For more information please see the Library of the University of Warsaw’s page. Information about our location and Opening hours you can find here.

The professional, sympathetic staff of the University’s Library and of our unit will ensure you full-range assistance and all the help you need to familiarize with the offered technologies, as well as with the complicated architectural structure of the Library’s building. We invite you to try out our services.