By Karissa Chou
Google Books is part of the Google Platform offering more
than 10 million books. The service is free for users to read as well as
download. Google Books have assistive technology-built ins. It has keyboard
commands for navigation and plain text conversion. It also has a read-aloud
option and screen reader. Google Docs already offers text-to-speech. Google
itself also has a high-contrast mode for those with visual impairments and
select-to-speak. Google books have what most call a hidden link in the top
right corner of the website to turn on the screen reader. Why did Google hide
this feature? From what I have read no one can be sure, it seems it was a quiet
change made without knowing how successful it would be, and Google did not want
to put it out publicly in case it did not work well. The download feature does
not include the screen reader ability. Many in the visual impairment community
consider this feature to be available only to the sighted community. It is sad
Google has not resolved this shortcoming.
Google Books are not meant to replace physical libraries
or traditional methods, it is more to supplement. Google is in the process of
collecting data from the visually impaired to improve its capabilities within
Google Books. I was surprised to learn Google Books has the largest collection
of books for the visually impaired of any library in the United States.
“Ten Million Books and Counting.” Edited by Braille
Monitor, National Federation of the Blind, Jan. 2013, nfb.org.
Google Books, Google, books.google.com/. Accessed
27 Apr. 2025.
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