Availability of Accessible Publications

This report, published with the permission of the Royal National Institute of the Blind, documents the results of the Availability of Accessible Publications project, undertaken by LISU for the RNIB.

The findings support the Right to Read Alliance's Campaign, which aims to significantly increase the proportion of publications available in accessible formats.

An estimate of the availability of alternative formats for all books published over a five-year period was made, based on a random sample from the British National Bibliography (BNB) for the years 1999-2003. An estimate was also made of the availability of alternative formats for a selection of specific categories (adult fiction, junior fiction, biography, cookery, gardening and sport) based on a random sample from BNB. A sample of popular biography titles was selected from the Bookseller Buyer's Guide for the same five-year period.

The report discusses the background to the study, describes the methodology used and presents the findings from the two stages of the project. A large print copy is available free of charge on the web, or a full copy may be purchased in print.

LISU Occasional Paper No. 35
ISBN 1901786919
Published May 2005 - pp 47 A4
Free on web - full paper copy £20