International cooperation

Nordic cooperation

The Nordic libraries for the visually impaired and persons with other reading impairments cooperate in various areas, such as information and marketing, purchasing, service to their target groups, tactile picture books, and children’s activities. Läsliv, MTM’s periodical, carries reports from Nordic meetings on a regular basis. Below, you’ll find links to libraries in Nordic countries.

Finland

Celia - Biblioteket för synskadade (Library for the visually impaired)

Denmark

Nota - Nationalbibliotek for mennesker med læsevanskeligheder (National library for people with reading impairments)

Norway

Norsk lyd- og blindeskriftbibliotek (Norwegian audio and Braille library)

Iceland

Blindrabókasafn Íslands (Icelandic library for the blind)

IFLA

For many years, MTM has been active in the International Federation of Library Associations and Institutions (IFLA). IFLA conducts annual conferences. Every other year, there are also pre-conference meetings for the section of IFLA that concerns MTM’s activities, Libraries Serving Persons with Print Disabilities Section, LPD/IFLA .

Daisy Consortium

MTM is one of the founders of the International Daisy Consortium. In Sweden, we have the Swedish Daisy Consortium. Both domestic and international cooperation through the Consortium is now focused on the implementation of the Daisy 3 Standard, in which many of MTM’s programmers are actively involved.

Transborder lending of books

MTM currently has books in about 50 languages and borrows from other libraries, when possible. The shared Daisy/Epub3 format opens new opportunities to lend, borrow or purchase talking books. Some obstacles remain, however, concerning copyright law. In this area, the Daisy Consortium and the IFLA are key players.

The Global Accessible Library

The development of a global virtual library of the world’s accessible media (Global Accessible Library or GAL), is an important part of international cooperation efforts. The opportunity to borrow or purchase each other’s talking book titles increases the number of titles of accessible media for the target group, as well as using available resources more efficiently. An expanded collection of accessible media is especially important in countries with a multi-cultural population. In the case of MTM, there is a great need to borrow, lend academic literature narrated in English, and to acquire literature for persons with a mother tongue other than Swedish. The Daisy Consortium works together with WIPO in the TIGAR project to establish a GAL.

IDPF

MTM is represented in the International Digital Publishing Forum (IDPF). IDPF promotes and develops publication formats important for the production of accessible media.