Paul Nisbet and Stuart Aitken have developed a comprehensive 4 day course that attempts to cover techniques for making learning resources in accessible formats. The course is split into two sections and the first half was held on 29/30 September, at Stirling Management Centre. It was attended by colleagues from across the country - from Shetland to Dumfries and Galloway, and was very successful. It was great to have a meeting of minds both geographically and also in terms of remit - there were people who make Large print, Braille and audio books for pupils with visual impairments and also staff who make digital books for pupils with other print disabilities due to physical impairments or dyslexia. This mix made the two days very stimulating (and hard work).

Over these first two days we covered:

• where to find and source accessible formats;
• accessibility of different formats for different groups of print-disabled pupils;
• how to add structure to digital books and make 'Intermediate Files' using Microsoft Word;
• how to convert these Intermediate Files to different audio, print and digital formats;
• adapting digital files from publishers.

The second part of the course will be on 19/20 November and will cover scanning and OCR, making interactive resources, uploading accessible books to the Books for All Database, and copyright issues.

We hope to repeat the four day course in February/March 2010 initially, and also in summer 2010 and/or the 2010/2011 session.

These courses are funded and organised by Learning and Teaching Scotland (LTS): attendence was FREE for participants. If you would like to find out more, contact Gayle Monteith at LTS (G.Monteith@LTScotland.org.uk).

Book Awards

The Royal Mail Awards for Scottish Children’s Books is an innovative nationwide reading project in which children and young people from every corner of Scotland read and vote for their favourite Scottish children's books of the year. Last year:

• Over 18,000 children were involved and an amazing 9,541 votes were cast;
• Over 350 schools and libraries in every corner of Scotland, from Aberdeen to Dumfries; Shetland to Arran, took part;
• The 2008 awards ceremony brought 550 young judges from across Scotland together to see their peers act out the winning books.

The Awards were originally set up by the Scottish Arts Council in 1999 and are now run by Scottish Book Trust. More information is on the Scottish Book Trust web site.

The shortlist

Children can vote for their favourite book from a shortlist in each of three categories:

Early Years (0 - 7 years)

• Manfred the Baddie by John Fardell;
• Pink by Lynne Rickards and Barbara Chamberlain;
• Stick Man by Julia Donaldson and Axel Scheffler.

Younger Readers (8 - 11 years)

• Dino Egg by Charlie James;
• The Eleventh Orphan by Joan Lingard;
• First Aid for Fairies and Other Fabled Beasts by Lari Don.

Older Readers (11 - 16 years)

• Crash by J A Henderson;
• Ostrich Boys by Keith Gray;
• The Reckoning by James Jauncey.

But what about disabled children who can’t read the books?

CALL Scotland has worked with the Scottish Book Trust and the authors and publishers to create accessible digital versions of the nine shortlisted books. The idea is that children and young people with physical, visual and reading or dyslexic difficulties, who can’t read the paper books, can read the digital books instead and take part in the awards.

Children with spinal injury, cerebral palsy or other physical impairments can click a switch or press a key on a computer, to turn pages and read the books by themselves. Dyslexic readers or children with visual impairments can change the font size and/or colours on screen, or use text-to-speech software to read the books.

The books can be read out by the computer using "Heather", the high quality Scottish computer voice that is available free for schools and pupils from CALL Scotland’s web site at http://www.thescottishvoice.org.uk/. Accessible digital versions of the shortlisted books are available free of charge from CALL Scotland by completing the 'Request Digital Copy' online form' via the Books for All website or phoning 0131 651 6236.

In a related initiative, RNIB Scotland have produced Large Print, Braille and audio copies of the books.