The Library of Congress’s National Library Service for the Blind and Physically Handicapped demonstrated October 21 a model for a new digital talking book that could eventually replace the cassette-based players in use today. The book-like model is called a Dook (digital book) by its Bulgarian-born designer Lachezar Tsvetanov, a 23-year-old student of industrial design at the University of Bridgeport, Connecticut.
Tsvetanov, who won $5,000 for the design in an Industrial Designers Society of America competition in June, said he wanted the player to resemble a book because “a high percentage of talking-book readers are older. They would have something in front of them. . . they were familiar with before losing their sight. And young people who use the Dook will feel they don’t stand out in a crowd because it looks like a book.”
The Dook has no moving parts and reads a book using a digital card. It resembles an open book with two thick pages divided by a hinge; buttons along the edges allow for page-turning, bookmarks, and searching. Its sound system will benefit older readers who cannot read Braille.
Over the next three years, NLSBPH will convert approximately 30,000 titles to the new technology at a cost of about $75 million, the Associated Press reported October 22. Players will be distributed free to users beginning in 2008.
Posted October 28, 2002.