Assistive Collections
A print disability is a learning, physical, or visual disability that prevents a person from reading print material. GPPL offers audiobooks, eBooks & digital audiobooks, large print, and DAISY books as part of our regular collections. We also have active partnerships with CELA and NNELS to provide alternate print resources for people who have difficulty reading our regular print collection. CELA and NNELS help us offer more:
CELA - Centre for Equitable Library Access
CELA Website: http://www.celalibrary.ca/
CELA Helpline: 1-855-655-2273
Sign up now using your location and library card number.
Screen Reader prompt: If you want to find out more about what services are offered through CELA, keep reading. If you want a rundown of ways to read audiobooks through your CELA account, follow this link to our Audiobooks through CELA page.
CELA Services
Audio
DAISY (Digital Accessible Information System) - an audio book you can read the same way as you would read a print book. Read a book from start to finish by just pressing play, skip from section to section, use bookmarks, and look things up in the index. DAISY can include both audio and text. Audio can be narrated or in synthetic voice (generated by a computer).
Audio demonstration of a DAISY player (CNIB)
More information about DAISY from the DAISY Consortium.
E-text
Books, newspapers and magazines in electronic text (e-text) - HTML and DAISY (see Audio above). You can read e-text with adaptive technologies such as a screen reader or magnifier, the text-to-speech feature on a mobile device, or a refreshable braille display.
Braille
Books and magazines in contracted and uncontracted braille, and electronic braille (e-braille) - including books in Unified English Braille (UEB). You can read e-braille on a refreshable braille display.
Braille music scores, including classical and popular music and preparatory materials for Royal Conservatory of Music examinations.
Printbraille
Regular children's picture books with see-through braille sheets added. Perfect both for budding braille readers and for adult braille readers who want to read to children.
Described movies
Movies with a special audio track that describes settings and actions during pauses in the dialogue.
Bookshare
Through Bookshare, an accessible online library for people with print disabilities, you can instantly access over 200,000 titles for free! Find New York Times bestsellers, novels, children's books, mysteries, science fiction, nonfiction, foreign-language books, and more.
With Bookshare you can:
- Read and listen to words read aloud
- Increase font size and read with large print
- Read on computers, tablets, smartphones, braille displays, and many other technologies
- Get free reading software
Bookshare lets you download books in DAISY Text, DAISY Audio (synthetic voice), MP3 (synthetic voice), or Braille Ready Format.
Note that Bookshare is an online-only service - you cannot order books on CD.
Sign up for Bookshare through CELA.
DAISY Books at the Library
The Grande Prairie Public Library offers special collection for patrons with print disabilities – it is called DAISY book collection.
Our DAISY book collection includes fiction and non-fiction titles. Fiction genres include mysteries, romances, adventures, westerns, family sagas and more. Non-fiction section has biographies, self-help, history, etc.
What is a DAISY book?
DAISY book is a type of a talking book which is simply a sound recording of a reading of a book (our library has CD format).
What is the difference between audiobooks and DAISY books?
Audiobooks have become popular these days and they can be borrowed by any of our patrons who just for some reason prefer this way of reading.
DAISY books are recorded in DAISY standard (stands for Digital Accessible Information System). This is a global standard and is the 'next generation' audio format for people who are blind or visually impaired, providing a better talking book experience. DAISY books are easy to navigate and to jump from one page to the other. They enable readers to move from heading to heading, page to page, paragraph to paragraph, phrase to phrase and/or word to word.
A single DAISY CD contains a complete book. These books require a DAISY player that is available for loan from our library. For more information on this format, refer to the CNIB site at www.cnib.ca.
How can I borrow DAISY books?
While audiobooks can be borrowed by anyone, DAISY books and DAISY books players can be borrowed only by people who have difficulty reading print due to a visual, physical or learning disability.
You can browse our DAISY Book collection. It is shelved in our audio-visual section.
You can also call us and place a hold on a book. Staff would be pleased to select items on your behalf, and have them ready for you to pick up. Call (780) 357-7455 to arrange for this service.
How long can I borrow a DAISY book for?
The loan period is three weeks.
Does the library provide DAISY Players?
We have a limited number of portable DAISY book players that can be borrowed for 84 days at a time.
NNELS - National Network for Equitable Library Service. The Canadian Accessible Library System.
NNELS Website: https://nnels.ca/
Sign up now using your library card number and PIN.
NNELS is a digital public library of downloadable titles for people in Canada with perceptual disabilities. It is also a growing network of provincial and territorial governments, readers, community and advocacy organizations, librarians, publishers, and accessible format producers from across the country, all working together to increase access to Canadian libraries' collections of print material.