BA/3/00
Meeting held at 1.30 pm on 29th March 2000, at RNIB, Great Portland Street, London W1N 6AA.
1. Rollcall: Richard West, Jim McCafferty, David McKerral, David Boden, Nigel Berry, Stephen Phippen, Lisa Bhogal, Claire Wilson, Allan Young, Fred Jakeman, Hans Cohn, Bill Poole, David Taylor, Liz Matthews, Alison May, Gareth Davies, Clare Gailans, Barbara Leyton.
Apologies: Paul Crunden-White, Isobel Yule, Iain Millard, Gail Chester, Terry Moody, David Moodie, Kevin Carey, Peter Osborne.
2. The minutes of the last meeting were accepted, except that Claire Wilson was present, but Clare Gailans was not.
3. Matters arising from the minutes. Allan Young asked what had happened with regard to VIMA's non-payment of fees. Stephen Phippen replied that the fees had now been paid, and it was also noted that GDBA had also paid their fees which were overdue.
4. Officers' reports.
(a) Chair. Bill Poole said that he had three items to report:
(1) Betty Niceley, the President of ICEB, died on 16th February after an unsuccessful operation following a stroke. According to the ICEB constitution the Vice-President of ICEB, Darleen Bogart, should take over as President; however, in Bill Poole's view it was undesirable that the posts of ICEB President and UBC Director should be held by the same person, and he has sent a message expresssing this concern. Darleen is now considering if she should relinquish one of these posts.
The Immediate Past President, Joan Ledermann is now also in bad health after suffering a stroke. Bill Poole said that he felt this was a particular shame, as he had known her well and had found her to be a lively colleague. As a consequence it was now possible that a second vacancy on the ICEB Executive Committee could arise. David McKerral asked when the situation was likely to be resolved, to which Bill Poole replied that he hoped by May. He also confirmed that a postal ballot to fill vacant posts would be possible.
(2) A meeting of the World Blind Union will take place in Melbourne in November. One of the agenda items will be to consider setting up a World Braille Council. Individual countries will also be encouraged to establish their own braille authorities. Richard West asked whether a World Braille Council would be a subordinate organisation to the WBU. Bill Poole replied that it would.
(3) A meeting of UBC Committee 3 will be held in London in May. Bill Poole had offered to stand down as Chair of UBC Committee 4, but as no one was willing to take over, the work will now be handled jointly by Committees 2 and 4, with Joe Sullivan as Chair (he is Chair of Committee 2). There will be time to discuss some Committee 4 issues at the London meeting, although Joe Sullivan will not be able to attend. Any recommendations coming out of the meeting relating to the work of Committee 2 or 4 will be put forward to the relevant committees.
Members of BAUK's Literary Code Committee will be invited to attend on one of the days. A suggestion had been made to relay the progress of the meeting over the internet to allow participation from remote observers. However, this has been rejected as it would delay proceedings, and it would make the handling of sensitive issues difficult.
(b) Secretary. Stephen Phippen reminded members to inform him of any changes to members' telephone numbers.
(c) Treasurer. The Treasurer was not present, but had forwarded a brief notice which was read out by the Secretary.
(1) The fees due from VIMA and GDBA have now been received.
(2) £3000 has been received from RNIB to help finance the forthcoming London meeting of UBC Committee 3.
(3) The invoices for this year's BAUK fees will be sent out on April 1st.
(4) Iain Millard has a new address: 5 Beacon Hill, Ovingdean, Brighton, BN2 7BN. Tel: 01273 303451.
Bill Poole added with regard to item (2) that since the UBC meeting has been extended, the £3000 from RNIB may not now be sufficient. ICEB will contribute £2000, and a decision will have to be made over who will pay the excess if the costs exceeded £5000. Richard West said that BAUK could cover this excess, but the Treasurer would have to be warned of this possibility.
In response to questions, Bill Poole stated that Isobel Yule and Jenny Clark at RNIB were responsible for the accommodation arrangements, and that the day on which LCC members would attend had not yet been decided. The travel expenses for the latter would be paid by the relevant affiliated organisation, or by BAUK.
(d) Public Relations Officer. The Public Relations Officer was not present. Bill Poole said that the article for New Beacon in which Kevin Carey is due to write about last November's ICEB meeting, and about UBC generally, is now expected to be ready for the May issue.
5. Capitals.
A report of the joint meeting of representatives from BAUK and UKABP was circulated before the meeting.
Hans Cohn said that an announcement should be made by the larger producers stating their policy for the production of magazines. Will there be a reduction in the content or an increase in size and price? David Taylor responded by saying that magazines could be viewed as being one of the listed exceptions. If, however, magazines were to be included, then they wouldn't only be produced in capitals, but a lower-case version would be produced too. If readers were asked their preference, he thought that the larger demand would be for the lower-case version.
Alison May raised the question of what the default format was. David McKerral said that BAUK's position was that customers should have the choice. Bill Poole agreed. The statement that lower-case is the default given in BAUK's public announcement was referring to cases where customers were not able to exercise this choice. The words "for the time being" were also used to cover this case.
However, Hans Cohn said he thought that there should be a norm and a deviation from that norm, and that we should set the norm as being capitalised braille. Liz Matthews was also concerned that a default should be set, so that organisations which couldn't afford to stock both types of braille would know which type to stock.
Nigel Berry said that he was concerned that BAUK's position is accurately stated in Kevin Carey's public article. Bill Poole said that he would see a draft of the article before it is published, and will ensure that it follows the correct line.
Fred Jakeman asked how it should be decided who the customer is. For example, an agency such as the Central Office for Information could be regarded as the customer if they placed the order for a transcription. Hans Cohn asked what BAUK should say if asked for advice by such an organisation. Bill Poole replied that the organisation should be told to respect the wishes of their end users. If people find themselves receiving the wrong type of braille they should complain. People will have to decide for themselves whether it is worth trying to press for whichever version they prefer. David Taylor suggested that RNIB could advise that most of their customers prefer non-capitalised braille.
Alison May said she thought the main consideration was that people were able to obtain the information they required. As long as the information is accessible we should not over-press and risk materials not being produced at all.
Fred Jakeman noted that the report also stressed that trials on translation software needed to be made before a clear picture of the situation could be gained. Bill Poole said that he was against differential pricing, but there may be practicalities relating to producing in either mode. He stressed that BAUK must defend and be clear about its current position.
With regard to British Braille, Bill Poole said that the recommendation from the BAUK/UKAPB meeting was for the production of a single edition of the codebook to be produced, containing the full statement of the rules relating to both capitalised and non-capitalised braille, but that the codebook be published in both capitalised and non-capitalised versions in braille. This was endorsed at the Literary Code Committee meeting in March. At this meeting, Bill Poole had put forward for consideration an alternative approach in which there would be two editions of British Braille, one relating to capitalised braille (and published in capitals), and one relating to uncapitalised braille (published in uncapitalised braille).
Richard West said he preferred the option which had been endorsed, i.e. having one document, with perhaps the rules for non-capitalised braille placed in an appendix. Allan Young said that the LCC had favoured interspersing the rules for capitalised and non-capitalised braille rather than having an appendix; Richard West replied that he would be happy with that arrangement.
It was agreed that the format for British Braille should be that recommended by the BAUK/UKABP meeting and endorsed by the Literary Code Committee.
Fred Jakeman raised the matter of the merger/take-over between Duxbury and Raised Dot Computing, the company who made the braille translation program MegaDots. He thought that the idea of developing a British braille translation program was a good one. Richard West pointed out that funding would be required for such a development, and David McKerral added that RNIB was looking into this option.
6. Report on the work of the Literary Code Committee.
Bill Poole reported that the LCC had met on 26th January and 21st March to work on the new edition of British Braille. No further meetings were planned. Two matters were outstanding: 1. the word list needed to be revised; 2. the capitalisation exemptions needed to be looked at again. With regard to the latter, Allan Young suggested that precise feedback should be sought from producers.
Alison May asked whether software companies would be prepared to modify their software according to our rule changes, given that UBC was also coming up. Stephen Phippen said that he had approached Duxbury, MegaDots and Pia as regards our rules on capitals, and each of these companies seemed to be responding positively. The new rules were already working fairly well in MegaDots, although the other two companies are believed to be at a less advanced stage of progress. Since our rules are fairly close to those of UBC, the work done for us will also be of use for programming UBC translation.
Bill Poole said that there had also been discussion about the placement of the capitalised passage indicator in cases such as where a paragraph starts with a number. Stephen Phippen said that the UBC rules currently say that the passage indicator should be placed immediately before the first capital letter in the passage, and this was what was stated in BAUK's new published rules. However, some people at the LCC said they preferred the indicator being placed before the first item in the paragraph, even if it were a number. Bill Poole said that we should continue to negotiate with UBC rule writers to try to persuade them over any items we would like changed in UBC. Stephen Phippen added that the new BAUK rules on capitals were fairly close to the UBC rules, but that we had had to develop our own preference rules concerning when the different modes should be used, because this area had not yet been written up in UBC.
Fred Jakeman asked whether the question of the oblique stroke was being considered by the LCC. Bill Poole said that it had been, as well as the brailling of italics and e-mail addresses.
7. The forthcoming UBC Committee 3 meeting. Bill Poole said that the meeting was planned to be held at Birkbeck College London, which was close to the hotel where delegates would stay. Observers would be allowed at the meeting. Jenny Clark (at RNIB) or Isobel Yule should be contacted for arrangement details.
8. Report from the Braille Promotion Committee.
Fred Jakeman reported that the attendance of that morning's meeting had been reduced because the NLB Council meeting coincided with the BAUK meeting. There had been no new items to address. The question had been asked whether the video "Sight by Touch" was still available, and if so where it was available from. The same question was asked of the video about Louis Braille which had been produced for BAUK. Allan Young suggested that the RNIB reference Library may be able to help, and Claire Wilson said that "Sight by Touch" can be ordered from "Cinexsa".
Fred Jakeman then asked when the Visual-Handicap Conference which he was due to attend would be held. Gareth Davies replied that the forum would be held on 21st July at the Commonwealth Institute. BAUK was on the mailing list and would be sent an invitation. Bill Poole said that he would be interested in attending.
Menus had also been discussed. Claire Wilson had reported that the company Brewers' Fare had discontinued braille versions of their menu in favour of tape. After discussing the issue with them they now say that they will reinstate the braille version next month. Weatherspoons has also followed the same path. With regard to menus it was suggested that the availability of a braille version should be stated on the print menu, so that sighted people would be able to see that braille menus were available for their blind colleagues.
Jim McCaffery added that Claire Wilson had also reported that a conference of VIEW/RNIB will take place on 11th November in Birmingham to promote a children's teaching pack, and to highlight how braille can coexist with technology.
9. Any Other Business.
Fred Jakeman reported that the Chess Committee had been approached by Hans Cohn with suggestions for adding signs to the chess code to make it more compact. Hans Cohn will place a notice of these proposals in the next issue of the chess magazine, asking for views. The membership of the Chess Committee is much reduced in number, and it is hard to get a response from the Braille Chess Association. Hans Cohn said that the BCA have an opportunity at their meeting to express their views about the chess magazine. In 20 years he has had very little response, and will regard no response as indicating acceptance of the proposed changes. Clare Gailans said that she will pass on Fred Jakeman's comments to the Secretary of BCA.
Richard West reported that since he was invited to be a member of the ICEB 8-dot Code Committee there has been minimal activity on the committee. He has advertised and sent out copies of our computer code, and raised issues, but any resolution is hard to achieve. There has also been an ISO proposal for an 8-dot braille code, and in consultation with Stephen Phippen and Bill Poole he has made a representation to ISO saying that they should not be pursuing this matter. The proposal was in fact not carried, because there was insufficient support (although more people voted in favour than against). He has alerted the ICEB 8-dot Committee to this development.
David Taylor reported that he had taken part in a debate on UBC via a mailing list. The consensus emerged that the American participants wanted to adopt UK braille (capitalised), rather than UBC. Bill Poole said that he had participated in a question session on UBC for a New Zealand broadcast. He had said that he was in favour in principle, but that there were problems which needed to be sorted out first, and little time to address them. He added that he had not yet written his paper on the UBC evaluation comments. The Project Director has asked that this should not be done before the official report has been released.
Hans Cohn reported that the German Foundation for the Education of the Blind is to start a course which he will run for teaching grade 2 English braille.
Bill Poole asked that any proposals for constitutional changes be passed to the Secretary in good time before the next meeting.