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IN TOUCH – Book Share; Winter Paralympics 2022

TX:Ìý 08.03.2022Ìý 2040-2100

PRESENTER:Ìý ÌýÌýÌýÌýÌýÌýÌý PETER WHITE

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PRODUCER:Ìý ÌýÌýÌýÌýÌýÌýÌýÌýÌý BETH HEMMINGS

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White

Good evening. ÌýTonight, the programme’s going downhill…

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Clip – Paralympics skiing

Watch the cop, he’s gone into the lead.Ìý The gold goes to Great Britain and Neil Simpson.Ìý

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Millie Knight will be on the podium with a brilliant bronze.

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This silver for Menna Fitzpatrick and Gary Smith might almost mean as much as the gold in the slalom four years ago.Ìý A brilliant silver for Fitzpatrick.

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White

GB’s winter Paralympians haven’t had to wait so long for medals as their Olympic counterparts.Ìý We’re going to be talking to early medallists later in the programme.

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But first, remember the Marrakesh Treaty?Ìý Well visually impaired book lovers, like me, certainly will.Ìý It was the agreement which was intended to smooth the path so that accessible books – braille, audio magnified print – could be shared far more easily between countries.Ìý It seemed daft that in a world where blind and partially sighted people had access to far less books than their sighted counterparts that we should have so much duplication of book production and that every country, individually, should have to jump through copyright hoops for permission to produce the same accessible book.

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That’s what we thought, anyway.Ìý But there’s been consistent murmurings here in the UK that things weren’t turning out as we’d hoped.

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Well, with us is avid reader Jackie Brown who lives just outside Belfast and who’s in touch with many other visually impaired readers.Ìý Jackie, what is your concern about the aftermath of Marrakesh and what are you hearing from other people?

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Brown

My concern is that if you are a student in the UK you can tap into RNIB Bookshare which is RNIB’s version of it.Ìý But people are saying that if you’re not a student, you then have to choose whether you go without or you join International Book Share which is a $50 subscription.

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White

And the worry for you, I take it, is not the money but the faff?

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Brown

No, it’s nothing to do with the money.Ìý I’ve actually joined it as well because I’m a student, so it’s just the messing about that you have to do.Ìý You’ve got to produce a certificate to say that you’re blind, which is fine but not everybody has one of those, so you need to get that from either your doctor or your social services department, wherever you’re registered.Ìý And then you have to upload that to Book Share as a JPEG file or just some file that’s accessible for them.Ìý And then pay your $50 per year.Ìý I just don’t understand why you have to do that when RNIB’s got a perfectly good portal which they say is only available for students.

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White

Right, so what is going on?Ìý I’ve asked another avid visually impaired reader, Kevin Mulhern, to look into the Marrakesh agreement, what it was meant to do and perhaps why there’s this rumble of discontent.

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Kevin, did we all get it wrong, what we thought this was all about?

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Mulhern

No, I don’t think we did. ÌýWhat Marrakesh actually does is it says if you’re a signatory then you literally import into your law the scheme that copyright and this has all been done by the World Copyright Property Organisation, so it’s coming from them.Ìý You ignore copyright, you produce a book in whatever format you need for people who can’t access it and then you, and every country that’s involved in it, can share the books with one another.Ìý A lot of us thought back then, 2013, long time ago, everybody imagined you could just log on and just take a book from any other library.Ìý And it doesn’t really work like that.Ìý The way it works is you can share your books with one another but each of the libraries have to import the books.Ìý So, you could get a book from America but you get it through the RNIB or through another library, which is signed up to the system.Ìý From 2013 onwards, the countries that have benefitted most are the countries which had the least because this was an international agreement and much of the thinking behind it was to make sure we got books out to the poorest countries.Ìý And largely that’s happened.

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White

Okay.Ìý Well, also with us is Alison Long.Ìý Alison’s Head of Consumer and Business Services at the RNIB.Ìý Alison, for many years the RNIB has, like this programme, campaigned about the lack of accessible books available to blind and partially sighted people and yet, at this at moment, there is a bit of a feeling that with all the optimism for book sharing a lot of consumers have the feeling that the RNIB is perhaps a bit behind the curve in that there are these sorts of rules and regs that Jackie was referring to.Ìý What would you say to that?

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Long

I would say that I think most organisations in our sector are a little behind because we didn’t necessarily have the infrastructure to deliver on the sheer scale and impact that Marrakesh brings.Ìý So, we are sharing books and we are receiving books but not yet at the scale that we will be able to.

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White

Can I pin you down a bit more on what’s holding you up because it kind of seems to us that if you have an agreement which says that people can share books between them, you’re all librarians, I’m sure you all talk to each other from time to time, shouldn’t it be really quite a simple thing to do?

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Long

It is on the face of it but if you think about the number of titles in our collections, we are sharing but we’re sharing in, and have been before Marrakesh to be honest, but sharing in quite a manual labour-intensive way.Ìý What we’ve needed is a system solution where we can just say – here you are, here’s all of our content that we can share under the Marrakesh Treaty, share it with all of the countries that have ratified Marrakesh.Ìý Actually, we are very close, we are testing that system right now.

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White

But it was, as Kevin said, it was 2013, it was nine years ago, I know it had to be ratified and then it had to be signed and then it had to be implemented but, even so, aren’t quite a lot of other countries further on than we are?

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Long

Not really.Ìý Not in, I don’t think, at scale.Ìý We all have the same challenge, particularly with the audio because they’re big files to share.Ìý So, what the system that we’re working with means that the content sits in one place and people access it from that one place.

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White

You see the impression I get is that you haven’t exactly been selling this system to people in the UK, you haven’t said we’ve got this Book Share system, come along and enjoy it.

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Long

Well, as Jackie said, on RNIB Bookshare is – we view that as our curriculum and academic collection.Ìý We have really seen that as a resource for schools, colleges, university and obviously the students that they’re supporting.

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White

But that was Jackie’s point – why this distinction really, no one grudges a good system for students but shouldn’t it be there for everyone?

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Long

I suppose what we would say is that the more public library kind of content that we have sits within the online reading service, which is a different platform.Ìý I mean, essentially, the same platform behind the scenes but we have been looking at options for widening out that RNIB Bookshare.

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White

But this feeling does persist that other countries are grasping the opportunity more firmly than we are, including one only just a few miles down the road from Jackie Brown.Ìý Lina Kouzie is Head of Library Access Services at the National Council for the Blind of Ireland and she’s been telling me the difference the Marrakesh Treaty has made to the services they’re able to offer.

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Kouzie

We used to have around 30,000 titles in accessible formats that sat on our shelves but since the Book Share Ireland platform, the digital platform, that we created, that number has increased to one million titles.Ìý And then, also, these titles, multiply them by five because they come in five different accessible formats.

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White

And exactly who is eligible?

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Kouzie

Individuals that are eligible are individuals that are blind, they’re registered blind or vision impaired in Ireland or individuals who have a reading difficulty, such as dyslexia or individuals, as well, that have, maybe, have a physical disability that stops them from accessing print.

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White

In practical down to earth terms, Lina, what does a visually impaired person in Ireland do if they want a book from this Book Share system?

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Kouzie

In Ireland we are quite lucky, in a way, that we have a register of individuals that are blind or vision impaired, so there’s no extra work that needs to happen for our service user, we can check that application form against the register.

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White

Is there any charge Lina?

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Kouzie

No, it is a free service.Ìý Back in 2019, when we built the service and we signed the service level agreement with the Dyslexia Association, we received a one-off funding from the Department of Higher Education in Ireland to set up the service and it’s been very, very successful, especially during covid when many schools, many colleges, were closed, public library service was closed and we were their only source of books in the country that they were able to download their books 24/7 from a library that never closed down.

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White

Alison, I want to bring you back on that because it does sound as if their system is rather less bureaucratic than yours.

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Long

Yeah, I think it’s just – part of it is that it’s kind of grown up in different times.Ìý RNIB Bookshare is kind of created before Marrakesh.Ìý We will get there in terms of joining things up more.Ìý We absolutely don’t want to stop customers from getting the content that they want, either for education or for reading for pleasure.

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White

I want to bring Kevin Mulhern back in because Kevin, one name keeps cropping us as we do the research into this and that’s the Accessible Book Consortium or the ABC, what exactly is that and where does that come into the picture?

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Mulhern

Well, ABC, they set up in 2014, the year afterwards, and anybody who was signed up to the Marrakesh Treaty at that point could put their titles into that organisation, like a clearing house, and you could clear books in and clear books out of it.Ìý For example, NLS…

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White

That’s the National Library Service in the United States, isn’t it.

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Mulhern

Yeah, which is a huge one and they’re in there.Ìý Now actually I believe that the RNIB are in the process of joining ABS but haven’t done it as yet, is that correct Alison, I’m not sure?

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Long

We are, yes we are.

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Mulhern

One thing I would say, unfortunately, in Britain, all roads lead to the poor old RNIB and I feel a bit sorry for them because they’re always the whipping boy.Ìý Many of these other countries, I don’t know about Ireland but certainly the United States, Canada, New Zealand, Australia, those countries get an awful lot more money from government to make this work.Ìý I’m pleased that Ireland got a grant but certainly America, Canada, New Zealand…

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White

They all get money, don’t they.

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Long

And all the Scandinavian countries, yeah.Ìý They’re always really shocked to hear that we get nothing to run our services from government.Ìý We are the anomaly.

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White

Alison Long, Jackie Brown, Kevin Mulhern – thank you very much indeed.

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Clip – Paralympics

In the mountains Great Britain’s medal tally keeps on ticking in the right direction.Ìý

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This silver for Menna Fitzpatrick and Gary Smith might almost mean as much as the gold in the slalom four years ago because she too, has had to bounce back from some difficult times.Ìý A brilliant silver for Fitzpatrick.

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One medal in the bag, here, has she given herself the chance of a second?Ìý Yes, she has.Ìý There’s another brilliant bronze for Great Britain.Ìý Menna Fitzpatrick is on the podium again.

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White

That’s the sound of success courtesy of Channel 4’s coverage from the Winter Paralympics in Beijing.

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Four medals at the time of recording for our visually impaired athletes.Ìý A gold for Neil Simpson, a bronze for Millie Knight and two medals for Menna Fitzpatrick, a bronze in the downhill and a silver in the Super-G.Ìý

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Well, Menna and her guide Gary Smith, joined me from Beijing earlier today.

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Hello?

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Fitzpatrick

Hello.

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White

Hi, how long have you got Menna?

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Fitzpatrick

Ten minutes.

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White

Ten minutes, that’s fine.Ìý That’ll be lovely.Ìý And then you’re going to your medal presentation, is that right, afterwards?

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Fitzpatrick

Yeah.

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White

Fantastic.

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Menna Fitzpatrick, first of all, many congratulations, it’s been quite a start, hasn’t it, for the visually impaired athletes?

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Fitzpatrick

Yeah, definitely.Ìý I mean we’ve had some really great results with Millie and Brett winning bronze on the first day and then our silver and Neil and Andrew winning gold and then another bronze.

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White

Yeah, now Neil won his gold in the Super-G and that’s where you won your silver medal as well.Ìý To people who aren’t skiing aficionados and winter Olympics aficionados, what is the Super-G exactly?

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Fitzpatrick

So, we always start off at a Paralympic games as the speed events, as we call them, and that will mean that the gates are a bit further apart, so there’ll be, what, about 50 metres apart and so the turns are a lot longer.Ìý And you reach up to speeds of about 70, 80, 90 kilometres an hour on two planks of wood, following an orange square pretty much.Ìý And, yeah, then we’ll get into the more technical turnier courses as the week goes on.

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White

Right, I’m interested in the guiding and I know Gary, your guide, is there with you but I can get you, first, to explain – just how does the guiding work?

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Fitzpatrick

So, first of all, we’ve got a bright orange jacket on the guide…

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White

And you can see enough for that, yeah?

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Fitzpatrick

Yeah, just about, as long as he stays within about two metres, anything more it goes a bit faint.Ìý And then we’ve also got microphones and speakers in the helmet and I’m really reliant on what Gary tells me and that’s when to turn or what’s coming up, whether the slope goes steeped, flat, whether I need to change my technique or little triggers or what the snow’s doing as well, whether it’s soft, icy.Ìý Anything that he thinks will help me and give me confidence.Ìý One example is like the light as well because then I’m expecting whether to suddenly go into this shadow and not see anything at all for a gate and a bit or whether it’s bright sunshine.

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White

Right.Ìý Your guide is with you actually, Gary, so hi to you.Ìý You’re wearing headphones but there must be a lot of other noise, going at that speed, in your ears, can you actually hear properly under those circumstances?

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Smith

The first few days we’ve had a real problem and I think a lot of the visually impaired teams did because of the wind being so strong here.Ìý You came round a certain part of the course and the wind was so loud you were just screaming at each other.Ìý For me, then, it’s making sure I’m looking back as much as I can, just because sometimes if Menna was calling and there’s distance I might not hear her very clear.Ìý We were lucky for the race, the wind calmed down, so our communication could be a lot calmer.Ìý So, that really helped us.Ìý But, yeah, sometimes it is quite difficult.

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White

This must be particularly satisfying for you, Menna, I mean you had quite a difficult approach to the games didn’t you – broke a leg earlier on?

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Fitzpatrick

Yeah, so just as the covid pandemic was starting to happen I broke my leg, actually with Gary and doing one of our last races before lockdown.Ìý And yeah, sadly, I broke my tibia in my right leg, and so throughout the pandemic it was Facetime on to physio and trying to do physio on myself, which is not ideal.Ìý But, yeah, Gary was a massive support in that and checking that I was alright and whether I could still make a brew or not.

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White

Because I think Gary’s had to come in, anyway, as a replacement guide.Ìý Does that create problems, working together?

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Fitzpatrick

Sometimes it can be quite difficult to stop and change guides but I’m really lucky that Gary and I had already skied together for a whole season and we built up that relationship and that trust and got used to each other.Ìý And then to step in, we also trained as a bit of trio with my other guide, Katie Guest, who sadly couldn’t be here because of testing positive for covid.Ìý We planned for the what ifs and unfortunately, one of the what ifs happened.

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White

Can I just ask you about the atmosphere at the games because, of course, there was a lot of confusion at the beginning when first the Russians were going to be allowed to take part, then they weren’t, I’m just wondering what effect that had, how unsettling that was for you and other competitors.

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Fitzpatrick

For us, in the alpine village, the atmosphere is still pretty good, everyone’s still enjoying their own experiences here.Ìý I mean it was a tricky situation for the IPC to make that decision and as athletes you’ve just got to concentrate on your own performance and not let anything else deter from that really.Ìý And it’s up to the IPC, we’re definitely not politicians.

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White

You’re just off, I think, to the medal ceremony, as we record this, have you got other events to come?

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Fitzpatrick

Yeah, so we’ve got the giant slalom and/or slalom events, what are they…

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Smith

So, Menna, had a bit of a rest day today and again tomorrow I think we’ll rest up and then we’ve got giant slalom training the next day and on Friday we’ve got our giant slalom race.Ìý So, that’ll be a – probably at about half one in the morning UK time and then finish up the Paralympic games with another slalom event to finish.

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White

Well, Menna and Gary, many congratulations to both of you.Ìý Great to end on a winning note.Ìý

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That’s it for today.Ìý Your comments very welcome, you can email intouch@bbc.co.uk, you can leave your voice messages on 0161 8361338 or you can go to our website bbc.co.uk/intouch.Ìý

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From me, Peter White, producer Beth Hemmings and our studio managers Mike Smith and David Crackles, goodbye.