[NABS-L] Students Reading Books From Learning Ally

[dandrews920 at comcast.net]

Kane, Learning Ally has been moving away from blind persons -- and towards
learning disabled/print handicapped people since the 1980's. They raise the
money in our name, and server a larger, but unorganized population.

Dave



-----Original Message-----
From: NABS-L <nabs-l-bounces at nfbnet.org> On Behalf Of Kane Brolin via NABS-L
Sent: Tuesday, July 25, 2023 10:45 AM
To: National Association of Blind Students mailing list <nabs-l at nfbnet.org>
Cc: Kane Brolin <kbrolin65 at gmail.com>
Subject: Re: [NABS-L] Students Reading Books From Learning Ally

Greetings.

A related question I would love to see answered:  Does Learning Ally support
the HumanWare Victor Reader Stratus12 DAISY MP3 player?

What Curtis discovered here, I find rather disturbing as well.  I get it if
Learning Ally has shifted its business focus more to those who are dyslexic
or who live with neurological problems that make them print-disabled,
somewhat de-emphasizing those of us who are primarily or exclusively blind.
That subpopulation is a lot more numerous than are the blind, at least in
North America.  But it seems unnecessary to drop the newest model of the
Victor Reader Stream, a hugely popular device, from that list of players for
the blind that Learning Ally supports.  After all, we would not be asking
Learning Ally to reformat its library to meet a new standard of player;
we're only talking about generating an access key to permit Stream 3.0 users
to validate that they are entitled to download Learning Ally DAISY audio
books onto the new device just as they would be entitled to do with their
Stream 2.0.
Learning Ally's explanation to Curtis does not seem credible to me, at least
on the surface.

Alternatively, I suspect your frustration is driven by another financial
consideration.  If we were going to use our collective power as blind
student/consumers to lean on anybody, I think we would be well served to
lean on HumanWare more than on Learning Ally.
HumanWare is a for-profit organization, whereas Learning Ally is not.
Does HumanWare demand of content distributors such as Learning Ally some
kind of payment in order for Learning Ally to gain a rights management
privilege that would permit Stream 3.0 users who subscribe to Learning Ally
to have access to Learning Ally titles?  Maybe Learning Ally is unwilling to
pay what HumanWare would demand for the right to register Stream 3.0 units.
Let's investigate the business case here and see who excluded whom from the
party.

Even though I've not been enrolled in a university for 28 years, I still
rely on Learning Ally to make available older and more scholarly titles I
cannot readily locate on Bookshare or on NLS BARD.  Learning Ally played a
huge part in my intellectual development, at least from 7th grade on
up--maybe even earlier.  I would hate to see blind people no longer thinking
their work irrelevant or thinking they do not welcome blind subscribers who
want to download their books on the newest and most popular audiobook
reading devices.  I think a lot of Learning Ally's material falls into an
underserved niche.  Their recorded books still are quite useful to those who
are in graduate school, compelled to access specialized titles for their
research that are not in high demand from the casual reading public and
which are therefore possibly not present in the Bookshare or BARD catalogs.

Kind regards,

-Kane