New Resource: “Getting Started: Implementing the Marrakesh Treaty for Persons with Print Disabilities: A Practical Guide For Librarians”

From IFLA:

The Marrakesh Treaty has already had a major impact on copyright legislation, removing legal barriers to making and sharing copies of books in accessible formats. But to ensure that people with print disabilities benefit from genuinely equal access, implementation is key. A new IFLA guide helps libraries take this final step, and make the promise of Marrakesh real.

When the Marrakesh Treaty was signed five years ago, it was celebrated as a major advance towards fair access to information for people with print disabilities. It addressed the ‘book famine’ – the serious lack of books and other materials in accessible formats.

A key factor behind this was copyright. To make a copy in an accessible format, people with print disabilities and the institutions that served them – libraries in particular – needed to seek authorisation from rightholders. Meanwhile, rightholders (often publishers) were not producing such copies themselves, leaving millions of people without access.

[Clip]

This is the aim of a new IFLA guide, published today, with support from the World Blind Union, University of Toronto, and Canadian Association of Research Libraries. It provides simple answers to the questions libraries are most likely to ask, providing guidance and support. We hope that it will bring us a step closer to genuine fairness for people with print disabilities.

Direct to Full Text (via IFLA)
20 pages; PDF.
Direct to Full Text (via EIFL)
20 pages; PDF.

Filed under: Academic Libraries, Associations and Organizations, Companies (Publishers/Vendors), Libraries, News