VozMe, text-to-speech and speech-to-text tools, and making digital data accessible
VozMe is an interesting free service that converts any text into an MP3 file. Just type or paste in some text and create a downloadable MP3 file. The site works in English, Spanish, Italian, Hindi, Portuguese, and Catalan. You can also choose to hear a male or female voice.
VozMe also offers javascript snippets and plug-ins that let your website visitors choose to listen to the text on your website with VozMe. You can also download their bookmarklet that allows you to select any text in a browser to hear in speech format, on the fly. And you can download a VozMe iGoogle gadget or a Facebook widget. *wow*
I am loving this tool! What a great way to listen to long papers or meeting minutes, giving your eyes a rest. Also, what a great way to turn publicly-presented library documents (like library commission minutes) into a format accessible to those with visual disabilities.
There are other tools out there that work like this, like TextAloud (costs $) and Odiogo (free and turns you blog post into a podcast). Odiogo’s sound quality is better but only works for blogs. VozMe’s process is much quicker and simpler, too, and works for any text whatsoever. TextAloud just doesn’t rank high in my book on either count, especially since it bears a cost. Free rules the world.
As more of our information becomes digital, our users with disabilities of any kind need us to pay attention to whether or not the information we present is accessible to all. For instance, how many libraries that podcast actually provide transcripts of their podcasts for users with hearing difficulties? Very few do (I’ve checked). EveryZing is a company that provides speech-to-text that would do that, incidentally, and yes, that costs money too. The other option is to have library staff transcribe everything manually (ugh!).
At any rate, my point is that we do need to think about these things, and so few of us do. Please, please, please remember to make your digital content accessible in each and every way. DRM is a big barrier here, I know, that we usually can’t control. But even that is a problem about which we can stand up to the vendors and publishes. No more DRM! No more inaccessible data! Rawr!
September 24th, 2008 at 8:31 am
I am confused.
Does VozMe (which sounds like a wonderful product!!!) only run online? Or is that what the bookmarklet is, a way to run it offline?
I ask because much of our public does not have Internet at home. I am hoping there is a way they can download a .PDF (or other text) at the library on our high-speed lines, take it home and run the bookmarklet to convert it into an MP3.
Or am I misunderstanding the point of the bookmarklet?
Thanks in advance for clarifying ~
LynneW
September 24th, 2008 at 10:35 am
Valuable post! I write for three different blogs. I keep track of about 100 blogs which I consult daily, plus work as assistant director/ reference librarian. On top of that I suffer from low vision. Anything that I can find that translates voice to text and allows me to put it into mp3 format is a godsend. Thanks for the tech tips.
September 25th, 2008 at 12:27 pm
The bookmarklet, as I describe above, lets you convert any text to an MP3. As with their other MP3s, you can listen online or download. An MP3 is an MP3 is an MP3. All work the same way. See their site for more explanation.
November 2nd, 2008 at 4:29 pm
There’s a free website called YAKiToMe! http://www.yakitome.com that has much better voices from AT&T than the free Festival voices that vozme uses. Unlike vozme, YAKiToMe! lets you store an unlimited number of TTS conversions of unlimited length and has very useful automatic podcasting and file sharing features that vozme lacks. Plus, YAKiToMe! lets you read the text while you’re listening, which is useful for speed reading purposes. YAKiToMe! has many more features … too many to list here … that make it a worthwhile visit for those looking for high-quality free TTS.