Digital Library

In order to satisfy an increasing number of demands from individual users, the service has been extended to an digital library on the Internet open to visually impaired readers [7]. The secure delivery protocol has been implemented establishing a secure the dialog between an hardware Braille device, Eurobraille-IRIS, and the Serveur Hélène [8]. The platform connects directly to the Internet and has a dedicated software reader, which prevents unauthorized exportations while books are read. The dedicated software developed on the Braille device also handles device registration, user subscription, rights management, catalog interrogation and book delivery. In order to not limit this application to a specific Braille device, the protocol has been made public in order to encourage other manufacturers to implement it. The registration to the Hélène Digital Library is free. After six months we had 80 regular readers registered and the number of books borrowed has been increasing dramatically over the period, while less that 500 titles were available on the catalog. Nevertheless, the catalog is enriched regularly and the number of readers increases.