BA/1/01
Meeting held at 1.30 pm on 14th December 2000, at RNIB, Great Portland Street, London W1N 6AA.
1. Rollcall: Lisa Bhogal, Sheila Armstrong, Stephen Phippen, Bill Poole, David Taylor, Peter Osborne, Gareth Davies, David McKerral, Hans Cohn, Fred Jakeman, Clare Gailans, Richard West, David Boden, Sarah Holme, Barbara Leighton, Claire Wilson.
Apologies: Nigel Berry, Jim McCafferty, Gail Chester, Kevin Carey, Allan Young, Mike Townsend, Steve McCall, Irene Graceson, Alison May.
2. The minutes of the last meeting were accepted.
3. Matters arising from the minutes: Hans Cohn mentioned that some London telephone numbers needed to be updated on the membership list, and Lisa Bhogal said that her e-mail address also needed updating. The Secretary asked to be notified of any such changes for future versions of the membership list.
4. Officers' reports.
(a) Chair.
(1) WBU General Assembly.
Bill Poole reported that Darleen Bogart had given a presentation of the UEBC project at the WBU General Assembly. It seems that there were many English speakers who had still not heard of the project. The WBU passed a resolution to create a "World Braille Council". The resolution states: that this Council should consist of a representative of the Literacy Committee; one representative of each of the linguistic-based braille standards bodies; and any other such representation that the officers shall decide. It should report to every WBU officers meeting. Bill Poole said that he had some reservations about the resolution.
Richard West queried the proposal that the council would consist of one person per language group. Bill Poole confirmed that this was correct; for example there would be one English speaking representative. It was noted that single language groups do not necessarily have a single braille code.
Peter Osborne said that he had been at the WBU assembly with the Daisy Consortium, and had been responsible for some of the revisions in this resolution. The word "Authority" had been used in the title, but was changed to "Council". He had spoken to a large number of people about Daisy and UEBC and would be happy to pass on his notes to those interested.
Hans Cohn said he thought that efforts should be made to agree upon punctuation and composition signs. He suggested that if the council was set up it would delay the implementation of UEBC.
David Taylor said that if the new body were to have regulating powers it needs to be accountable. It should be openly known how members are selected.
Bill Poole said that he was glad that the resolution was passed, and agreed that "Council" was preferable to "Authority". However he regretted that it had not been laid down that the body should engage in other activities such as braille promotion and library development. He was not as optimistic as Hans Cohn that punctuation, composition signs and especially letter group contractions would be easy to bring into line, although it would be worthwhile to attempt it. David Taylor said that the difficulty with contractions is that they are geared towards the importance of letter groups in particular languages; however Hans Cohn pointed out that there were some common groups, such as en and in.
Bill Poole said he thought that the composition of the council was very unsatisfactory; he would have preferred a one member per braille authority composition. Peter Osborne said that this had been discussed, but it had been found difficult to arrive at a mechanism to achieve this.
David Taylor asked whether it was clear that this new body would be part of the WBU, to which Bill Poole replied that it was. In addition it must be assumed that WBU would be responsible for financing it. Bill Poole also noted that there was nothing in the proposal to limit the new body to literary braille as opposed to technical braille.
Bill Poole agreed to write a letter to the WBU expressing BAUK's general support for the proposal, but asking questions concerning its terms of reference and other issues raised at the meeting. He would circulate the letter to BAUK members, together with the original resolution.
(2) Office holders in the ICEB Executive.
Bill Poole reported the death of Joan Ledermann following her stroke. There are now vacancies in the posts of Immediate Past President and Vice President of ICEB. Darleen Bogart says she would be most comfortable with the post of Immediate Past President. There has been no progress in finding a replacement for Betty Niceley, although there are various options. The next interim meeting of the Executive is on 14th January 2002 in New Zealand. Peter Osborne asked what the process was for appointing a new President, to which Bill Poole replied that the Executive Committee would have to hold an election.
Hans Cohn asked if there had been any progress with the UEBC formatting committee. Peter Osborne replied that there had been some e-mails concerning the position of print page indicators. He had talked to Darleen Bogart about this committee and she asked him if he would be interested in chairing it, but he had declined. However he has written to the committee to say that he thought it should be concentrating on giving only guidance on formatting; he felt that recent discussions have been too prescriptive in their intent.
(3) ICEB Project Committee.
Bill Poole said that the Project Committee had meant to complete its report by November 2000. However, to do so it needed to take into account the reports of the other committees, which were also not yet complete. On Committee 3 issues there needed to be a decision about shortforms - whether to use a list-based or rule-based system. Committee 3 had also strongly recommended the adoption of the UK rules on capitals (in particular, the use of the 2-cell terminator), but this has not yet been discussed by the Project Committee. Committees 3 and 6 are supposed to jointly discuss the issue of bridging contractions, but this has not yet started. However there was still time for final committee reports to be in by June 2001.
Peter Osborne said he thought that a stronger hand was needed from the Project Chair, and suggested that a face-to-face meeting of the Project Committee be held to clear these matters. Bill Poole pointed out that this would require funding, but Peter Osborne said that he may be able to offer help with this.
David McKeral asked for clarification on the recommendation to accept the UK rules on capitals. Bill Poole replied that the move was to accept the UK method of showing capitals, not our decision to allow a dual standard. Lisa Bhogal asked if the option not to show capitals would be available in UEBC, to which Bill Poole replied that this had not been discussed - the assumption is that capitals would be used.
It was agreed that a face-to-face meeting of the Project Committee should be recommended. Peter Osborne's offer to provide funding was also noted.
(b) Secretary.
Stephen Phippen reported that work on the revised edition of British Braille was progressing. He had prepared the draft in print and was now producing a braille version for circulation to the rest of the Literary Code Committee. He thought that a March completion date was over-optimistic, and that a target of the July BAUK meeting would be more realistic. This target date was agreed.
In reply to a question Stephen Phippen replied that the new edition would contain a bullet sign, dots 4-5-6 lower d.
(c) Treasurer. The Treasurer was not present at the meeting and no report was made.
(d) Public Relations Officer.
(1) Web page.
Peter Osborne presented a paper concerning the establishment of a web page for BAUK, and other public relations matters. He said that he had tried find a realistic solution to the web page issue which would be usable but not too expensive. His estimated costs were £1760 to set up the site, plus £760 per year to run the site.
Stephen Phippen asked how this estimate related to what would be involved for an individual to set up a personal web page. Peter Osborne said that there are some costs involved in the latter, but his estimates were based on the assumption of paying someone to design and maintain the BAUK page for us, rather than our doing it ourselves. Stephen Phippen then asked if the costs would be reduced if instead of doing this we could enlist someone we knew to help us, e.g. from RNIB. Peter Osborne said that they would.
Fred Jakeman said that BAUK couldn't afford to pay the level of costs mentioned, but David Taylor thought that we couldn't afford not to. David Boden said that BCAB had set up a web page for £300. Bill Poole said his view was that BAUK needed to go ahead with this project but should look at reducing the cost.
Lisa Bhogal asked whether BAUK should join with UKABP in setting up a site, but Bill Poole replied that his view was that it was important that BAUK have its own site, so that it was seen to be independent.
Richard West said that we could draft our own documents, then the conversion to HTML for the web page is relatively easy. The navigational design of the web site is important. Stephen Phippen added that he currently writes and holds BAUK documents in a format which allows HTML to be generated automatically. Loading these on to a web page (once set up) should be easy.
Bill Poole asked whether it would be onerous for someone to act as webmaster, to which Richard West replied that it would not in our case.
It was agreed that Peter Osborne should look into reducing the costs, and that the web site should be set up if the costs could be reduced to below £1000.
(2) Other matters.
Peter Osborne suggested that a pack be put together explaining what UEBC is. He had contacted the ICEB PRO but without response yet. In addition we needed a fact sheet about BAUK; he wondered whether information David McCann had collected could be used.
Richard West said that he was coming to the view that the PRO and the Braille Promotion Committee's work should come together. Fred Jakeman proposed that the PRO should attend the Braille Promotion Committee meetings, and that this should be formalised at the next AGM. This was agreed.
Hans Cohn commented that people needed training on the physically optimum conditions for reading braille, and also needed advice on increasing reading speed. David Taylor commented that people were using the Braille Primer to teach braille readers, although it was not meant for that use. Teaching packs are available for the purpose. Lisa Bhogal added that the Fingerprint course does discuss braille reading position.
Richard West reported that there has recently been a lot of discussion about braille on the BCAB discussion list, and there has been a suggestion that this should be separated off into a specific braille discussion list. There are volunteers offering to run it. Bill Poole agreed that it would be worth looking into the idea. Peter Osborne said that he would be nervous about launching a discussion list in BAUK's name; BAUK should disassociate itself with views expressed. David Taylor agreed and added that the scope of the list also needed to be clear. Richard West suggested that he consider this with 3 or 4 others, and report back at the next meeting. This was agreed.
5. UEBC Workshops.
Bill Poole said that he had held a workshop on UEBC at the NFB conference. He thought that this had been successful; people were pleased to see the samples and asked valid questions. He had found this exercise worthwhile and would be willing to repeat it.
Fred Jakeman commented that he had also found it went well. David McKeral agreed, and asked whether there was a summary of what the code was. Bill Poole said that there was, but some changes were still being made. It needed to be made clear what the current state of the code was. Richard West said that it was also important that the rationale for the code should come across, otherwise unnecessary hostility could be generated. Peter Osborne said that these matters should be resolved by having a coherent pack available, which people could use in presentations.
Hans Cohn said that Federation members had taken the view that UEBC was for the elite rather than for ordinary literary readers who did not need to bother with computer code, etc. Why do the majority have to give way to the minority? Bill Poole replied that the rationale of UEBC was to unify across different codes. The differences between codes can be very restrictive, e.g. there are 3 different braille dollar signs in the US.
David Taylor reported that workshops had been held at ABAPSTAS, in which they tried to explain the issues. Unexpectedly it was the issue of braille promotion that turned out to be controversial; people weren't concerned about the code. Gareth Davies said that people don't yet feel threatened by UEBC as they did with capitals. Clare Gailans thought that the people who had been against capitals had not yet heard about UEBC.
Lisa Bhogal reported that the AVIOS workshop was not very well run due to problems with floods, etc.
Richard West returned to the question of having a short document to explain the current state of the code. This would be useful as some people on the BCAB list were commenting on points which were no longer current. Bill Poole agreed that there was a need to compile such a simple document, but he would want to wait for the forthcoming Project Committee code decisions. Peter Osborne confirmed that this document is what he had in mind for the UEBC pack.
6. Implementation of Capitalisation.
Peter Osborne reported on the discussions which had taken place between RNIB and NLB. They had reached the conclusion that for the majority of their publications they would delay the implementation of capitals until the UEBC position is clearer. If the adoption of UEBC seemed likely, it would be difficult to introduce two sets of changes. This position had been put to the NLB Council. Sarah Holme added that both RNIB and NLB use the MegaDots translation program. A move to capitalisation, then to UEBC, would incur major costs in training, software and production processes. They want to make sure that their production process methods are correct before going ahead with such investments.
Hans Cohn said that he opposed this. Delaying implementation (e.g. until 2003 for UEBC) was not acceptable to the educational sector. However, Peter Osborne in clarification said that their view was to delay blanket implementation; this would not prevent implementation for certain sectors, such as for the educational field. Bill Poole also added that Peter Osborne was talking about the RNIB/NLB position - this was not binding on other producers.
Gareth Davies asked whether this issue could be put to the RNIB Education and Employment Committee. Peter Osborne replied that a statement would be put to the Director of E & E, but added that he agreed that education would be treated as a different category. Richard West commented that if changes could be made for one sector they could be made for other sectors. There was a risk of reopening the debate with the approach being suggested. However Bill Poole said that the proposal was not to avoid implementation itself, but just to wait for clarity about the implementation of UEBC.
Richard West asked whether, if the Project Committee comes out in favour of some other standard for capitals, we would reconsider our own standard. Bill Poole replied that in his view we should not.
Stephen Phippen suggested that there would be a similar problem with the other rule changes contained in the new edition of British Braille. Peter Osborne agreed that any rule changes which required changes to the translation software would not be implemented quickly.
7. Approval of the new edition of the braille chess code.
Fred Jakeman said that print chess notation had become more symbolic, and the revision of the braille code was designed to meet the needs of transcription. He hoped it would also be good for players. Since some members expressed a wish to see the revised code before formal approval, it was agreed to delay approval until the next meeting. Anyone wishing to see the code should contact the Secretary.
8. Any other business.
Hans Cohn said that 5 years ago Isobel Yule and himself were asked to undertake a translation of the French and German contracted codes into English. He had done a manual braille translation of the German code, but this was now in the hands of RNIB awaiting its conversion to an electronic form. He thought this delay was not acceptable and wanted BAUK to ask RNIB to get on with it.
Stephen Phippen said that he knew that several options had been looked into at RNIB since it had received the document in June last year. Unfortunately the document would not scan, so it had to be manually copied to produce print and braille versions. Someone was now assigned to the task and he hoped it would progress more quickly, but there were only limited resources available.
It was agreed that David Taylor and Stephen Phippen would look into the matter.
Clare Gailans reported that the Music Committee had met and had dealt with some matters relating to the international standard, raised by Peterborough staff.
The meeting closed.