reflections on scanners and optical character recognition

I'll be writing in Scholar, Disciple shortly about my use of scanners and optical character recognition software in my graduate school coursework. This technology is some of the most amazing stuff I've ever seen! It is also one of the technologies that has come the farthest in my lifetime.

I first put my hands on a reading machine in the mid-1980s. The public library in my town got a "Kurzweil reading machine"--the hope was probably to attract blind patrons to use the library. The reading machine sat on the floor and was so big that I could pull a chair up to it like a desk--truly a massive piece of technology!

A few years later, a new desktop model was developed called the Kurzweil Personal Reader. In time this gave way to the Reading Edge, which weighed "only" 30 pounds. One of these machines came into my possession in 1994. My life was forever changed. No more relying on human beings who sometimes didn't show up to read my homework to me. I could read at my own (very fast) pace for as long as I needed to. I could choose not to read and take my own responsibility for failure instead of failing because someone else didn't show up to read to me. And I could roll the machine on a luggage cart into the library to scan journal articles, save them onto a disk, and pop them into a computer for later viewing! I imagine that other students must have wondered what on earth I was hauling around at break-neck speed--I had a dog guide who was quite a sprinter at the time. I really did not care. I could read almost anything, and I did read almost anything in the psychology or special education sections of the library.

The poor old scanner did its job faithfully for some 12 years, only being serviced once. In 2006, it suddenly called for help once more--just at the time when I was about to enter seminary. I had it serviced but also decided I needed to have a second scanning solution on hand. It would not do to be stopped in my tracks in the middle of a graduate school program that required me to read a minimum of 400 or 500 pages a week.

I had one requirement for a new scanner: it must be a book-edge scanner, meaning the glass must reach the edge of the machine. Most scanners are made for scanning pictures, not books. The beds are flat, but there is machine all the way around the glass. When scanning books on these machines, it is necessary to hold the book down very flat in order to capture as much text as possible; and often text close to the margin is cut off.

I was able to locate a fairly new scanner, the OpticBook 3600. This was a commercial book-edge scanner that would work with any optical character recognition software.

Two major OCR solutions are available for users who are blind. Both provide spoken output so that the user can read as the material is scanned. I opted not to purchase either of these programs. Instead, I purchased a commercial program called FineReader Professional. I had evaluated a demonstration version and found that it worked with my screen reader; and I supposed that since I would be reading my books in MicroSoft Word, I did not need the extra synthesized speech feature that comes with Kurzweil or OpenBook. I did not know how prophetic my choice would be.

technology and change

I have been hearing a lot of general discontent lately about the changing state of technology. It ranges from the impact of changes in the Windows operating system on accessibility issues to the advent of touch screens to the fact that a person can no longer go into a cell phone store and buy a simple phone that just makes outgoing calls. The grumbling comes from people with disabilities and people without disabilities, people who are young and people who are old. The crux of the matter seems to be that we want new features in the same familiar design, not too complex to use and not too difficult to find. Surely that's not too difficult to accomplish, is it...?

The real problem seems to be that we must create more work for ourselves... We don't really know how to be satisfied without being driven forward at breakneck speed. And so we keep going forward, ever faster. And at the same time we are desperate for time to relax, crying out for simplicity. We want more features in the tiniest possible piece of technology, buttons that can be felt but please don't take up so much space or make this too heavy... And oh, yes, do make it aesthetically pleasing! In fact, make it available in ten different colors!

Thinking about all these changes brings me to contemplate how grateful I am to have been born at a time when I could be cognizant of the amazing changes that have taken place in the field of technology. I am often amazed afresh at the impact this has had on my life. One particular incident stands out in my mind as testimony to the impact of the explosion of technological progress over the last 20 years.

I recall sitting in the car with my family one day during my senior year of high school on the way home from some outing... My sister was bemoaning the fact that her friend down the street had received an entertainment system for Christmas to put in her bedroom. Our family didn't have money for extra things like this. I had a stereo in my room that I had purchased with money that I had saved, and my sister had a little boombox; and we all went into the living room to watch TV. Mom remarked that it would be interesting to think of the things we would tell our kids someday when they whined--things like, "When I was your age, we only had one VCR."


My niece is 15 years old now. Perhaps she has seen a VCR... I'm not really sure. It wouldn't mean much to her if her mom said she only had one VCR when she was her age. My niece has a DVD player, a TV, an IPOD... Even CDs wern't in common use in 1989. We had no idea what was coming!

My first exposure to a computer came in 1984. It was an Apple 2E; and a floppy disk had to be inserted with the operating system on it in order to run the machine before turning it on. The disk really was floppy. Later, when I started using an PC with DOS, which was the precursor to Windows, those floppy disks were still in use; but there was an additional drive that was smaller and took a more durable disk. My desktop computer still has one of these small "floppy" drives; and I still have a few "floppy" disks. I am not geeky enough to keep an old PC with a real floppy drive--those spaces in my desktop are now taken up with DVD drives. I very reluctantly taught myself to use Windows in 2000. It was a change borne out of necessity. My old computer worked just fine; but the local Internet provider stopped providing dialup access that was compatible with DOS programs.

What all of this experience has taught me is that I must maintain an openness to what is new., even while I might have my own preferences. Those who have joy in life are those who know how to keep up with it as well as to rest. It is a challenging balance to maintain: neither to be driven by the need to keep up nor held back by the fear of moving ahead.

A First Look

Technology seems to be moving forward at breakneck speed... I am composing this post on a rather "outdated" computer: an Asus Netbook running Windows XP home. I haven't found it necessary to upgrade it yet. My need to access information and communicate in writing with sighted people meant that I was introduced to technology at a very young age. Often the technology was very new, and learning to use it required me to stretch my critical thinking and problem-solving skills. The result is that now I am able to learn to use new technology when I need to, even when it is less than adequately accessible. I have also developed skills for troubleshooting when things don't work; and those skills have come in handy at times when my family and friends have needed some help. Finally, I enjoy exploring new technologies when I have the opportunity; and I have learned to make critical decisions about when and why to upgrade equipment.





All of these things have contributed to my decision to start this blog. There is, of course, much more to my background than this; but this is a small start. I have found that people often value tips concerning the use of technology and reviews of products that may be useful. These are things I will provide here. Much of my effort will be focused on accessibility of technology for people with disabilities; however, I will also provide information of general interest on certain topics that may be especially helpful.