Tiflolibros, digital library for people with visual impairment

Toni Codina on 21 February 2023

Spanish-speaking digital library with free access for the visually impaired. It counts on more than 60,000 books –in text files– that can be downloaded and read from any adapted device with a screen reader programme.

Tiflolibros is the first internet library specifically designed and available for Spanish-speaking people with some kind of visual impairment –blind and visually impaired people– or other difficulties –dyslexia and literacy learning disorders– that prevent access to reading. They can also use the institutions that offer support and services to these groups. The aim of the project is to extend access to reading and information by taking advantage of new technologies, thus contributing to improving the quality of life and favouring the autonomy of visually impaired people.

The library is built as a network, based on the contributions of books that various users and institutions digitise and works provided in digital files by the publishers and authors themselves. Once the files are digitised, it is with the help of a screen reader programme that the devices can output the written texts in the form of an artificial voice or as tactile lines in Braille.

Both access to the library and the downloading of books are free of charge once the registration process is completed. In order to register, it is necessary to provide a series of personal data and to prove the disability or difficulty in accessing conventional reading by presenting a disability certificate or card or a psycho-pedagogical or medical report. Currently, the Tiflolibros library is present in 48 countries and reaches more than 10,000 users with some kind of visual disability. Beyond that, the library is also a space for exchange and contact between visually impaired people from all over the world.

Characteristics of innovation

Bank of innovations, Disability, Independent living, Innovative organization, New technological tool, User empowerment

Localization

Argentina

Partners / Funders

The Tiflolibros library does not receive subsidies or stable funding from state bodies. It is financially supported by the creation and development of specific projects in competition with national and international organisations and foundations; the sale of educational products and services and donations from users and friends of the project.

Genesis

The Tiflolibros library initiative was born in 1999 in Buenos Aires. Following the development of the library, Tiflonexos was founded in 2001, a non-profit association with the aim of providing the library with a legal framework for action. Tiflonexos is currently developing the Tiflolibros project as well as other projects for the inclusion of visually impaired people through the use of new technologies.

Level of implementation

Throughout the project’s trajectory, Tiflolibros has received important awards and distinctions. Among many others, the Digital Empowerment of Persons with Disabilities Award, granted by UNESCO in 2016, and the Vidanta Award for outstanding and original projects carried out in Latin America and the Caribbean to reduce poverty, inequality and combat discrimination, granted by the Vidanta Foundation, the Organisation of American States and the Ibero-American General Secretariat in 2015.

More information

Propose your innovation

See our selection of innovations

Banc d’innovacions

AutisMIND, an application to stimulate the social cognition of children with ASD

AutisMIND is a mobile application that enhances the ability to empathize with others in children with Autism Spectrum Disorder (ASD)

Digital Streetwork, social workers who assist young people through the Internet

Digital Streetwork is an initiative that moves street work with youth to the Internet

BRUS, accompaniment to young people who live in families with situations of drug addiction

BRUS is an accompaniment program to young people who live in families with situations of drug addiction

App Morada, support against gender-based violence for women with disability

App Morada is an application that helps and guides women with disability and victims of gender-based violence

Nagaya Tower, an intergenerational building to combat unwanted loneliness

Nagaya Tower is a building that connects people of different generations to combat the feeling of loneliness.

Barnahus, care service for child victims of sexual abuse

Barnahus is an integrated unit formed by a specialized multidisciplinary team, whose objective is to prevent the re-victimization of children and adolescents who are victims of sexual abuse.

Memory Center Platform, an interactive platform that brings the experiences of migrants closer together

Toni Codina on 31 January 2023

Multimodal and multilingual digital platform that collects heritages, testimonies, experiences and narratives around the phenomena of displacement and forced migration in order to help build complex identities and foster social cohesion between refugees and European host societies.

It harnesses the benefits of innovative digital and artistic tools to facilitate cultural exchange, storing and managing a wide range of content (documents, videos, images, texts). It is available in 6 languages (English, Italian, Spanish, Catalan, Greek and Polish) and is accessible to institutions, academics, artists and the general public.

This software platform represents the final archive of all the content produced throughout the life of the So-Close project, so of cultural heritage on refugees and migrants. In fact, it is the culmination of the project: it stores and makes it possible to search, view, share, download and aggregate the materials created. Thus, the MCP contains digital maps, virtual exhibitions that allow the sharing of tangible and intangible elements of the countries of origin and host countries, and interactive and immersive video documentaries. In this sense, the MCP interacts with the three digital tools created during the project –Storymap, Webdoc and Exhibition– with the aim of sharing and pooling cultural heritage. Apart from preserving and gathering all these generated contents, it also connects them with similar initiatives thanks to the social network tracker and allows the user to be a co-creator of new cultural materials.

In addition, this platform provides a number of basic accessibility functions –such as font size modification or font adaptation for people with dyslexia, among others– for people with functional diversity. These functions can be easily activated by users.