BA/1/02
Meeting held at 1.30 pm on 10th December 2001, at RNIB, 224 Great Portland Street, London W1N 6AA.
1. Rollcall: Lisa Bhogal, Stephen Phippen, Richard West, Michael Townsend, Fred Jakeman, David Taylor, Peter Osborne, Kevin Carey, Hans Cohn, Isobel Yule, Bill Poole, Barbara Leighton, Gail Chester, Peter Wilkins, Allan Young, Claire Wilson, David McKerral.
Apologies: Kevin Connell, Jim McCafferty, Terry Moody, David Boden, Irene Grayson, Sarah Home, Gareth Davies, Iain Millard.
2. Correction to the minutes of the last meeting: In item 8, it was Jim McCafferty, not David McKerral who said that he would probably have to resign from the Braille Promotion Committee if the date for its meeting were to be changed from BAUK meeting days.
3. There were no matters arising from the last meeting.
4. Officers' Reports.
(a) Chair. Bill Poole said that he intends to add some agenda items for the forthcoming interim Executive meeting of ICEB: 1. the filling of the current Executive vacancy; 2. the allocation of funds to cover expenses for the recent UEBC conference in Canada; 3. UEBC in the light of the WBU proposal to create a World Braille Council (e.g. the WBU resolution talks about unifying punctuation signs across different language groups); 4. braille translation software; 5. the resolution of outstanding issues of UEBC; 6. outstanding work on the interface between UEBC and foreign codes; 7. the request from the North American region of WBU that the ratification of UEBC to be delayed till after the 2003 meeting; 8. the future of the 8-dot braille committee.
Hans Cohn asked whether a face-to-face meeting of the UEBC foreign languages committee would be necessary, to which Bill Poole replied that it might, depending on the agenda, e.g. if phonetics were to be included.
Richard West asked if a delay to the completion of the project beyond 2003 would affect the consultation process in the UK. Bill Poole thought not, and Mike Townsend added that the code should be finalised before then, and so public consultation could go ahead. Richard West then asked if there was any news about the ICEB 8-dot committee; he would like to know if it had ceased. Bill Poole said that he had not been able to raise this matter in Canada.
(b) Secretary.
Stephen Phippen reported that a proposal had been made to amend the Welsh Braille Code. A print document had been received from people at RNIB in Cardiff, but this needed to be converted to braille. The proposal included some minor changes to the code itself, and the document is now bilingual. The document also contains lists of standard signs, such as punctuation marks, although it still refers to British Braille. It was agreed to set up a small group consisting of Bill Poole, Gail Chester, Stephen Phippen and possibly Gareth Davies to deal with this matter. The group would be able to ratify the amended code on BAUK's behalf.
(c) Treasurer. The Treasurer was not present, and sent his apologies to the meeting.
(d) Public Relations Officer.
Peter Osborne apologised for not being able to attend and make a report at the previous BAUK meeting, due to work pressure.
(1) On the topic of a BAUK website, Peter Osborne reported that he had secured some resource to develop a site, but before going ahead BAUK needed to agree on how the site would be managed once set up. He himself would not be able to take this on, but the developer needed to be clear about who this would be. There would be no cost to BAUK for the site to be set up.
It was said that Christopher Edwards had offered to maintain the site for BAUK. Stephen Phippen said that the site should include an archive area for minutes, information papers and codes, and Richard West added that it would be useful if searches could be made within the site. Gail Chester said that someone on BAUK was needed who would be responsible for what goes on the site, and suggested Peter Osborne, as Public Relations Officer. Peter Osborne replied that he would contact Christopher Edwards about the technicalities of uploading material to the site.
(2) House style for publications. Peter Osborne reported that some comments have been received about the point size used in our printed publications. There is an issue as to what print style BAUK should adopt as its "house style". He himself did not have a view on this matter. Mike Townsend suggested that 14 point would be a good size, and is favoured by transcribers he deals with. Stephen Phippen said that BAUK currently uses 12 point for print intended for normally sighted people, which is a standard size to use in print, but we have used a genuine large print size, e.g. 16-18 point, for print intended for people with reading difficulties. He thought that 14 point might be a disadvantage for normally sighted readers, but not large enough for people who needed large print, and so would prefer to retain our current practice. Bill Poole suggested that BAUK should try using 14 point for its publications, and this was agreed.
(3) UEBC. Peter Osborne said that he would be attending the interim Executive meeting of ICEB in New Zealand, and had agreed to meet the PRO of ICEB there. He was keen to establish the extent of the work done so far, and what the plans were to promote the code in the future. He would also like to be sure that the UK has access to as much sample material as possible. He has also given three UEBC presentations since March 2001: at the Inside Out conference, to the RNIB management team, and on local radio in the Southwest.
Lisa Bhogal asked why there was much more discussion about UEBC within the electronic discussion group in the US than in the UK. Bill Poole said that we had made a decision not to try to raise the public profile of UEBC too much until the code had been finalised. Kevin Carey added that there was also a strong split in opinion about the code in the US.
5. Braille translation software. Kevin Carey said that three years ago he had warned that decisions about braille could be forced upon us unilaterally by technology. A recent development is that Index (who produce braille embossers) distribute a free braille translation program, WinBraille, with their embossers, and have recently brought out a "pro" version. There is a danger that people will stop buying the high quality products like Pia and Duxbury, and put these companies out of business. As a consequence the expertise and backup support of these specialist companies will be lost, and user need as regards the braille codes will not be served. He therefore feels that we need the capacity to support people in the UK to write braille translators, and is looking for a resolution to encourage RNIB, Scottish Braille Press, NLB, etc. to support such a capacity.
Peter Osborne agreed that Kevin Carey had raised a real issue, and said that RNIB is starting to look at options for braille translation software. RNIB is currently using MegaDots in production, but it needs to look to the future. WinBraille may promise a lot but might not deliver what we need. RNIB needs a production quality system, allowing user control. He supports a coordinated effort to secure this.
Peter Wilkins said that he was concerned about the cost of new software, which could hinder code changes being taken up.
Mike Townsend said that the UK translation mode in WinBraille is being produced in the UK. The aim of the producer is to take more control of the embosser and thereby avoid transcription problems; but he has talked to Index about the production issues, and thinks we will be able to influence the software development. However, he agrees that there is a monopoly problem. David Taylor said that user intervention is needed with WinBraille for the translation to be in accord with British Braille rules.
Lisa Bhogal asked whether this was an issue of common interest to both BAUK and UKABP, and it was suggested that a joint meeting could be held to discuss it. Bill Poole said he would be willing to raise it at the next NLB Council meeting, although Allan Young said that NLB were already aware of the situation. Peter Osborne said that he had been tasked to take the lead on this issue at RNIB, but that there was also an international dimension: he had been approached by other software producers about the need to preserve the knowledge bank. He will discuss this more with the people attending the forthcoming ICEB conference.
6. Meetings of UEBC Committees 5 and 6 in Canada. Bill Poole reported on the meetings of these committees dealing with formatting and rule writing respectively. He is not a member of either committee, but went as an observer. He felt that not enough preparation work had been done prior to the meeting, and had not been happy that rule writing sessions were held at the meeting itself. Some sections of rules have been written, but Committee 6 has not submitted its final report, and some coding issues need to be resolved.
Hans Cohn, who attended as a member of Committee 5, said that their meeting had been successful, and that the Chair, Reinette Popplestone had prepared well. Discussion included items such as page numbering, page information lines, headings, notes, tables, etc., but not all items were finished, and others, such as drama, were yet to be discussed. No further meetings would be needed.
Peter Osborne said he felt that the forthcoming Executive meeting needed to examine the charge of Committee 5. He thought the original intention was for it to exercise a light touch, but the current trend of their discussion was becoming too detailed and prescriptive, which would over-complicate the implementation of UEBC. Mike Townsend said that Sheila Armstrong, who also attended the meeting, had similarly reported this, and Kevin Carey agreed. As regards page size, it would be better to have options, rather than a fixed international size.
7. Forthcoming ICEB Executive meeting in New Zealand.
Bill Poole and Peter Osborne will be attending. Kevin Carey said that ICEB seemed to be getting too slowed down by detail. He felt that a sense of urgency was needed, and a working draft standard of UEBC should be released as soon as possible, in a similar manner to the way Daisy and WAI draft standards are released, and can be used as working entities.
Richard West queried that the inference seemed to be that we couldn't retain British Braille even if the UK public wanted it, to which Kevin Carey replied that he didn't think British Braille was an option. David Taylor thought that the only options were to go with UEBC, or with a BANA-type code with lower numbers. Our code will become expensive to produce, and become marginalised. Our best way forward will be to go with UEBC because it is more in accord with our own code and preferences.
Hans Cohn said that UEBC is trying to impose a system on braille readers who will rarely need its features; we will not persuade the public to do this. Bill Poole said that there are things that can be done to make UEBC more acceptable, e.g. minimising the use of typeform indicators. Kevin Carey agreed: stylesheets can be used to determine the extent to which typeface and other print features are reproduced in braille; the main point about UEBC was that it made available a unique representation of symbols. Stephen Phippen added that there now seemed to be two levels in the UEBC project: UEBC as a braille transcription code, plus now the recent work on formatting. He thought the latter was separable and should not divert possible agreement on the former.
Mike Townsend said that he supported UEBC because of the way the code was built on logical foundations. Also, Nemeth code currently creates a barrier for people breaking into maths from literary braille, and UEBC avoids this barrier. Bill Poole agreed, but pointed out that we in the UK do not have this problem between literary and our maths braille to the same extent. Kevin Carey reiterated that the bigger picture was more important than quibbling over details. We should get UEBC running now, and allow revised versions later. Richard West said he didn't disagree with this view, but was concerned how this idea could be sold to the British public.
Stephen Phippen said that he was interested in the idea of leaving the option open to users. When the time comes we could support UEBC as a transcription code available to be used in the UK, but without at that stage committing ourselves to replace British Braille and our technical codes. The extent to which UEBC was actually used would provide an indicator of public acceptance of the code, and this strategy would also allow the code to mature in real use. David Taylor said that commercial considerations could govern the extent to which codes were used; British Braille could become expensive to produce compared to what was available abroad.
8. Braille Promotion Committee.
Richard West reported that the committee had met that morning. They thought that it would be useful to hold a braille strategy day, inviting those involved in braille reading and production, as well as BAUK representatives. The aim of the day would be to see what could be done to raise the profile of braille, and highlight its benefits. Setting up such a day would need finance. They also wanted to promote reading schemes for all ages - for older as well as younger readers.
Hans Cohn said that he thought that the idea of a strategy day was a good one, and was done in other countries. Literacy for blind people means learning braille, and the government should support it. Richard West agreed, but said that this message had to be got across to government.
Lisa Bhogal suggested that UKABP could collaborate in setting up the day, and Richard West agreed. Isobel Yule and Richard West will liaise with RNIB over this, and Kevin Carey added that UKABP also had money for such a venture.
9. Progress on British Braille.
Stephen Phippen reported that the Literary Code Committee had reached the stage of having a corrected draft for checking. The wordlist still needed to be worked on, and a new, more detailed, index would be compiled. The draft had not been circulated to the whole of BAUK because of the expense: this will be done when the work is more complete.
Lisa Bhogal thought that there was a danger of our progress being too slow, and of the completion of British Braille being too close to the possible launch of UEBC; however, Bill Poole replied that the same concerns had existed with regard to the computer code, but we had been proved right to publish the new edition when we did.
Stephen Phippen said that we needed to think about our strategy for when British Braille was ready. For example, it will take time for braille translation software to be able to deal with the new rules: should we delay publication until the software is ready, or should we publish straightaway, but with a statement saying that transcribers can use the new rules as soon as they are able?
10. Dates of next meetings. Bill Poole said that due to RNIB's move from Great Portland Street to Judd Street, BAUK was unable to book meetings in February or March 2002; no date had yet been arranged for the next BAUK meeting. It was agreed that the Secretary should try to book a meeting for the 8th or 9th April.
The meeting closed.