 So, my name is Lindsay Tyler and I work with Sila and the panel today is Abigail Kidd, Lori Davidson, Daniel Levy-Pinto, Sebastian Nadu, and I can't see your names. No I'm not. Okay. So, let's, so Daniela, do you want to start and just introduce yourself briefly? Sure. Thank you, Lindsay. Hi, everyone. So my name is Daniela Levy-Pinto. I am the project coordinator with Nels, and yeah, I guess I'll leave it at that. Thank you. Abigail, introduce yourself. Sure. So I'm Abigail Kidd. I work in employment and social development Canada in the Office for Disability Issues, and I've been working on alternate format files since October 2017, so just over three years now. Thank you. Sebastian. Hi everyone, Sebastian Nadu. I'm the director of services for public at the BANQ, BANQ in Montreal, which is the bigger part of the SQLA. The Quebec Services for Adapted Book. Thank you. And Lori Davidson. Hi everyone. I'm Lori Davidson, and I'm the executive director of Sila, and I've been working in accessibility for the last many years. And I was at Nels as a project manager, and we've to see that in September of this year. So very excited to be here. Thanks. So for the panel, they've elected to each address a specific question. So let's start with Abigail. I'm going to talk about set the frame for us and describe what the federal strategy is regarding accessible publishing and the background for the development of that strategy and then how it informs or relates to the question of digital literacy. Yeah, happily. So I'll start with the background. So a few years before I joined in October 2017, there was a sort of working group project out of the Library of Archives Canada on digital earth. It was an alternate form of products. It was focused on looking at the gap that existed and addressing it, but unfortunately it didn't go anywhere. It actually failed. And so when I came in, we were just starting to look at what was happening in the alternate format landscape referring from stakeholders about the barriers that this ongoing gap was creating. And we knew that was out of step with our adoption in June 2016 of the Marrakesh Treaty. And so that was sort of where we were starting from and we felt like we could need to both better understand the issue and then in order to once we've done that we would be able to sort of form a strategy to address it. So we formed the working group on alternate format materials for Canadians with print disabilities in December 2017. It included representatives from national disability organizations and consumer groups, including CELA, NALS, and CNIB. It also included representatives in the Canadian publishing industry, the library sector, people with lived experience, people from Indigenous organizations and Indigenous people with lived experience, and officials from Heritage Canada, the Marrakesh Canada, and from Innovation Science and Economic Development Canada, as well as from Employment and Social Development Canada where I work. The working group's mandate was to identify elements required to develop a strategy to address the limited availability of alternate format materials in Canada. So out of that working group, the working group met five times and we sort of closed the working group mid 2018 and the spring 2018. And then we worked internally to develop a strategy that was at a federal level, which was announced in budget 2019. So the strategy had two core elements that were informed by the contributions of the working group. The first element is addressing gaps in technology through the alternate format business technology challenge. The challenge, as we refer to it, is leveraging a program out of Innovation Science and Economic Development Canada. The program is called Innovation Solutions Canada, and it's leveraging that program to challenge small businesses to solve issues that are technological or digital in nature. Usually that program is used to solve issues around like using AI to better serve Canadians through internal processes. The first use of that sort of program to challenge businesses in Canada to solve a social issue. So we asked them to address issues around the production. So technology that limits production or makes production more costly and issues around devices. So the technology that prevents devices from being accessible, affordable, or somehow solves the issue of technical literacy and devices that makes them easier to use. It was launched in 2019, February 2020, and it closed around December 2020 and we're just working on solidifying phase one of that. So that's one piece of the strategy. The second piece of the strategy on a federal level is the use of the Canada Book Fund. I heard from Sarah about that yesterday. So it's using the Canada Book Fund to support independent Canadian publishers to become accessible at source so to produce accessible digital books at source. That's currently in year three of five. And so we'll be sort of in a really good position to understand how that's going needs to go come out of that at the end of this year. Sort of like those two core pieces we felt like addressed a lot of the issues but there's still gaps that remain there's distribution issues which we've heard about and which I know the Canada Book Fund is considering in terms of how they move forward into the final years. There's gaps for multinational publishers as as the federal government we don't have control over what multinationals do. We don't fund them to do stuff and so there's always going to be those gaps and it requires like pressure from the market to shift that. There's gaps of broadband so we know that there's a lot of people that don't access digital books because they don't have broadband access and trade access. And then finally there's gaps in terms of format which is sort of what we're going to be addressing through these conversations today. I know that there are still paintings of print disabilities to rely on physical materials and that the federal strategy does not address the costs with conversion and as much as we would hope to address that through technology innovations. It's still going to be there. There's people that need access to Braille in order to read and access literacy and email devices are really limited. And then there's also a lot of senior canyons like it's very common for senior canyons to acquire print disabilities are through the highest proportion of the population. And they require access to things like Daisy books and CD. And it's those people particularly older middle age to senior canyons who have new print disabilities that we are most concerned with when it comes to how do we, how do we support them in accessing e-readers and accessing digital books that they are able to benefit from the strategy as well. And that's sort of where the digital literacy component comes in. So digital literacy look work would look at helping canyons print disabilities acquired literacy skills that are required to read accessible digital formats, which would have an impact and who can access books but also the level of conversion required and the costs associated with that. That's sort of like the stage that we're starting from today I think. To Abigail, that was a very thorough background to the policy or strategy framework that we're looking at. So say best thing in your experience, who are the people who and maybe Abigail has alluded to this a bit but you can expand on who are the people who may require training in this context and or access to technology in order to participate successfully in the accessible publishing ecosystem. What are their needs and what challenges might they face? Yeah, thank you Lindsay for your question. As the head of a public service and considering the entire reading ecosystem, I believe that all stakeholders would benefit from improving their digital literacy or even their digital awareness. At the beginning of the chain they are publisher and producer who needs to understand all the positive elements that can be represented by, for example, documents that are born accessible or the closest it can be. Reality which is now plausible thanks to the digital world. This new reality once well established in practice for institutions such as B&Q would multiply by a couple of hundred of time our purchasing power for ADAPT documents. Authors, publisher, and the works themselves would then be more widely distributed and therefore more better known. And of course the users themselves. We work with various organization and partners to equip a very varied clientele to take advantage of growing and changing offer. There are many sources of information and entertainment these days. For many young and old, training is essential to open their horizons. If we go back to the reality of a library, it is certainly easier to exchange overseas electronic file than multiple volume braille document. So for the user, digital literacy means more choice and open doors, but we must not fall into the trap of being completely digital either. Many users are and always will be only comfortable pressing the play button on a player to listen to an audio book, and that's fine too. Many fully functional readers prefer the contact of paper. The possibility of choosing physical documents, a paper braille let's say, should therefore remain for everyone. For us, more than 80% of our loans of ADAPT documents are made in physical format because it meets the needs of our patrons. And between the producer and the user, there are the organization that provides contents, platforms, medium and so on, organization like BNQ, CELAS, Nails, and others. And we too need to sharpen our digital literacy and train as much as possible in technology in order to play our role to the fullest. My personal point of view is that we even have to be at the forefront so that we can see what's coming, make adjustments while keeping one foot firmly in the years before because our role is to smooth out the challenges on every user site. And as you all know, the challenges in this ecosystem are multiple. They are of course all the challenge related to accessibility per se, but also those route and the concept that I'll resume by what's in there for me. A user may not understand what he or she will gain from using this or that technology or even just from learning something new. In my opinion, every stakeholder has a role to play in developing knowledge and their needs and the various needs of others. And I believe that a summit like the one we are attending today serves that specific goal or even meets higher level by demystifying needs and challenges we take part in gaining literacy ourselves. Thank you very much, Sebastian. Laurie, could you talk about the groups or organizations that are currently involved in training and digital literacy or providing access again to technology. Thanks Lindsay. And thanks Abigail and Sebastian. I think you both hit on some some points that that I share with your observations. You know, in terms of looking at social inclusion and digital literacy we do definitely have to keep in mind that the choice and format of material that we need to make make that choice be available to all people in Canada with a print disability and that could have to do with their economic means it could have to do with their comfort level or ability to learn new technology. What their internet connectivity is like and whether they have access to the same kinds of digital services as other people do. And also the specific nature of the person's print disability can also inform you know what kind of format so that's the broader perspective of how though digital delivery we want to move in that direction we can't leave people behind who still require those physical formats of delivery and that cost and that and that distribution of those physical formats, there has to be an infrastructure behind that to make sure that those services are still supported as well. So in relation to what's out there in terms of training, I think one of the observations that that as a group that we had discussed before that we were speaking to is that there's really quite a patchwork of services across Canada that different people in Canada have access to different training services depending on where they live. And so as we know, you know in Sebastian spoke to what the services can be available for people in Quebec. But we've also got across the country different programs in place not only for different provinces and territories have different programs for providing the actual devices themselves the actual you know assistant assistive technology which can impact then what are the choices available to people with print disabilities and how they can access content. Then there's a lot of sort of consumer groups or community groups and I speak here of groups such as the Canadian Council for the Blind Braille Literacy Canada CNIB, and they all all offer different training of different sorts to their user communities. And there's a CNIB does vision loss rehab and the BLR centers across Canada do varying things in each of the different provinces and territories. We know within the library environment. The NL's BA and Q offer various webinars and training to users but also to libraries and then each local library will offer their own kinds of training. Let me know if I'm cutting up by getting a note that my internet connection is unstable so can you still hear me. He's a little fuzzy there for a minute but you're okay now. Okay, okay. You know so very much there's a lot of different players in the landscape who are doing this training and I think it can be quite confusing for the user sometimes to know where to go to and where to get the kind of training that they require either to be able to feel comfortable with adapting to the new digital delivery but also to make sure that those digital modes of delivery work for them in whatever environment and format that they need to be able to read. And then I'll also just speak that there's of course the whole world of K to 12 and post secondary and with the various organizations that support those readers and that's another sort of other place where people can access training. So I think that that environment is is really understanding the Patrick nature of that environment is also an essential part of the conversation to ensure or try to figure out how we can build a framework that isn't so confusing or that isn't perhaps has different levels of equity across Canada and that we can actually form a framework that helps everyone in Canada who needs this who needs the training and to make sure that we are as inclusive as possible. Thanks Lori not so confusing I think would be a good good direction to move in I think we're seeing a picture that there's a lot happening and it and it fits together in different ways or not depending. So Daniela. You're the last panelist today. What do you think about what gaps and what opportunities you think exist for delivering digital literacy and training and to what extent do you think readers with print disabilities have equitable access to the technology to read born accessible books. Thank you Lindsay for the question and I think I will echo some of what the other panelists have have already said. These two gaps. What Lori was mentioning about kind of a more patchy landscape of different organizations, perhaps at different levels, offering different types of training. This results in that not everyone in Canada has the same level of access. So gaps would result from lack of ability or lack of an internet connection, not everyone has internet at home. And this is especially relevant in the time of a pandemic. How can you deliver training on digital literacy. You can perhaps not reach the people that you're trying to train. I mean, zoom is seems to be or could be for some an easy technology. But if we're dealing with aging populations that don't necessarily know how to use it. And that is a bit of a question in, in terms of how do you provide training for different demographics, different formats or different mediums, like videos perhaps podcasts, that's something that now is working on kind of following for users to get books. But it's complex, because sometimes some readers require not only to learn one reader one one tool. But also, people sometimes have to have a Dropbox account or other storage cloud storage for them to load the content into those applications. So, that's, that's another potential gap that can be created the more elements you add that people have to learn or the more tools or technologies. And that's, that will depend of course on people's level with technology. Maybe their age. We always think about seniors, of course, who require CDs, because for them learning to use something else, maybe different. I wonder though, maybe this will change when the new wave of seniors, like 10 or 15 years is there like, I guess what I'm trying to say is the more people know technology, if they already know it, if they, or when they age. This will not be an issue but that's a gap that we have now so how can we address it in the time of a pandemic. I don't have the answer. Maybe, maybe training by phone but again it's different. Different outside elements. Also complicated training, but they're at the same time, these are opportunities for for training and for teaching people how to, how to use this. Something else, maybe different. I think an important element and piece of the work is again making developers aware that the technologies the mainstream technologies why they are not working if they are too complicated. So the distinction very important distinction that matters here when we talk about training and inclusion between accessibility and usability. Right, the fact that something is accessible that maybe follow, or it may follow accessibility standards and maybe accessible with a screen reader does not mean that it's very easy to use. I think that conversations also need to happen with developers and also for them to provide good training tools. I consider myself, I'm a user of assistive technologies and I don't always find very clear instructions. So that's another gap, but also, again, another opportunity. So it's, I think, all these gaps we can, or we should be thinking about how to address them and how to provide the training from, from different levels, really to ensure that the ecosystem is truly equitable. And address some of the other pieces that may impact the equity here. Other panelists have also talked about the relevance of flexibility in format for accessibility and I really want to emphasize that as well. We should not be mandating people what formats to use, we should be providing them information. And the training and for them to be able to use the format that they really need. So I think I will leave it here for now. Thank you, Daniela. We have a few minutes if there's any last thoughts before I stop the recording. If I could add here as well I think information about formats. It's important not everyone knows what he pops are. So it's really I think the awareness creation piece that I think all of us working in accessible publishing and accessible reading are doing. So that users also know what's available to them one, you know, once they know then then perhaps it would be a matter of building little maps. So if formats and which tools to use them and yeah, but then the how do you convey this information for digital literacy in for someone who's not tech savvy in the pandemic world. That's that's something I still don't know. Yeah, I think that's a good reality check. Okay, great. So I'm going to stop the recording now.