• Journal of Korean Library and Information Science Society
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• v.30 no.4
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• pp.137-161
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• 1999

The purpose of this study provides the conceptual and practical framework on the strategy to enhance services for the visually handicapped in the braille libraries. In order to achieve this purpose, the questionnaires, the interview, and the observation of the data collection techniques are used in the study, and the braille libraries throughout Korea which are in operation are selected as subjects for the research and survey. The results of the study are summarized as follows. 1. Most of the braille libraries, about 70%, are located in Seoul. It thus appears that this geographical unbalance cause the visually handicapped inconvenience in use, who is especially living at the regions where no braille library is located nearby. 2. To enhance the efficiency of the library services for the visually handicapped, first of all, the limited scope of the subject as well as the poor volume of the collections should be resolved as soon as possible. 3. Most of the libraries are neither equipped with necessary facilities to publish in braille nor secured the supporting instruments which facilitate to use library services for the visually handicapped satisfactorily. 4. The collections for the visually handicapped consist of the brailles and the recordings mainly. Because the visually handicapped is difficult to access and visit at the libraries alone, these materials are generally circulating rather outward by postal service than inward. 5. The qualified staff who has the very responsible position for reading and circulation is required to have educational background in library and information science, to have passions for the visually handicapped, and to have abilities to understand and translate the materials in braille.

• Journal of Information Management
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• v.41 no.1
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• pp.97-126
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• 2010

Many visually handicapped people face difficulties with using libraries. Public libraries are thus required to meet the need of visually handicapped people. Public libraries should guarantee the visually handicapped the right to use appropriate services. If so, the visually handicapped can improve their life quality by decreasing information gap and increasing information comprehension or accessibility. This study is designed to analyze how visually handicapped people can use public libraries. Based on the analysis, this study can provide actual suggestions to improve opportunities for the visually handicapped to use libraries. Data are collected from visually handicapped people who are the members of Suseong Public Library, Daegu, Korea. In specific, this study can analyze various characteristics(i.e., information needs, selection and use behavior of information sources, difficulties and gaps to access information, use behavior and service satisfaction of public library) regarding their library use by telephone interviews.

• Journal of the Korean Society for Library and Information Science
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• v.24
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• pp.139-169
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• 1993

The major purpose of this study is to scrutinize and analyze various factors in numerous aspects of two different library systems for the visually handicapped, namely braille library and a special section for the visually handicapped in the public library system. The analyses may provide theoretical and conceptual framework on which strategies to enhance services for the visually handicapped is to be developed. More specifically, this study seeks (1) to examine a linkage between the degree of maintenance of staffs, collections, and equipment and the level of satisfactions of librarians and (2) to come up with more effective mechanisms of welfare services for the visually handicapped in each library system. This research is qualitative-descriptive and uses interview method. Fourteen libraries throughout the nation (4 public libraries with a reading room for the visually handicapped and 8 braille libraries) which had been in operation more than one year were selected as subjects for the research. Findings and results of the analyses are summarized as follows : 1. There seems to be general consensus that each of public and braille library has significant but, to a certain extent, different roles to play in order to enhance library services for the visually handicapped. Recruitment of qualified librarians, increase of the volume of collection, and enlargement of reading room space are noted as immediate concerns for the former. For the latter, it was suggested that increase of the number of staff for publishing, securing more equipments for pulication in braille, and wider scope as well as more variety of publications are the pressing problems at hand. 2. Both public and braille library employ one librarian for the visually handicapped who is required to have educational background in library science and special education. In addition, one must have competence in reading braille types. 3. Majority of reading rooms in those libraries is so small in physical aspect that size and number of seats are 66m2 and 15 seats respectively because circulation services are mainly in use due to the problem of inaccessibility which is commonly suffered by the visually handicapped. 4. Library services for the visually handicapped are heavily concentrated upon the large urban area. In fact, most of braille libraries are located in Seoul whereas a reading room for the visually handicapped in the public library system are exclusively placed in the large cities such as Inchon, Taejon, and Taegu. 5. All of the public library is neither equipped with necessary facilities to publish in braille nor secured supporting instruments which may facilitate library use for the visually handicapped. On the contrary, most of braille libraries are equipped with arrangements to publish in braille despite supporting devices are gererally lacking. 6. Consequently, provision of services In the public library is largely confined to reading and circulation of materials purchased from braille libraries while major task of braille libraries centers around publication and distributions of the reading materials in braille.

• Journal of Korea Society of Industrial Information Systems
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• v.9 no.2
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• pp.51-58
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• 2004

Today, according to the rapid growing of internet, many homepages have been developed and given us useful information. Since most of these homepages do not consider the visually handicapped, it is very difficult for them to access information from internet. Although several hompages provide services for the visually handicapped now, they are very insufficient to provide information for them. Therefore, this research aims to develop a digital library for the visually handicapped so that they could easily get to the digital library without restriction of time and space, search information from it and use it. The system for digital library supports an interface through which the visually handicapped could easily and conveniently use it, which is developed with TTS based speech syntactic technique.

• Journal of Korean Library and Information Science Society
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• v.32 no.4
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• pp.229-256
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• 2001

Library service should be available and accessible to every one. But people with disabilities were much excluded from library and information service in Korea. The information and communications revolution ought to be a passport to inclusiveness the disabled in library and information service. This study describes current library services for the visually handicapped and reviews related critical issues in Korea and the state of the art in adaptive technology for low vision and blindness. And proposes necessary methods to improve library and information services for the visually handicapped in Korea.

• 제어로봇시스템학회:학술대회논문집
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• 1997.10a
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• pp.577-580
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• 1997

• Proceedings of the KSR Conference
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• 2004.10a
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• pp.1725-1730
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• 2004

The railroad station building is a public facility that many people use. The disabled persons cannot move as freely as the ordinary persons do, so the facility shall be considered on this matter. We reviewed on the features of the retarded, visually handicapped and mentally retarded persons upon moving, and calculated the minimum space required in their move, access and use of the reachable space, and we also analyzed the design factors so that the prior guidance can be considered for the visually handicapped such as installation of guidance facility, change of finishing material and Braille points block handrail to avoid obstacles for the use of senses of touch, hearing and remained eyesight of the visually handicapped. In addition, we also analyzed the requests of general design totally to analyze and arrange the design factors with the thought that the facility for the handicapped shall be useful for the ordinary people as well as the handicapped.

• Journal of the Korea Society of Computer and Information
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• v.19 no.11
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• pp.167-173
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• 2014

A white cane is used by many people who are blind or visually impaired. The studies and developments in the field of smart electronic white cane have been progressed to improve walking safety of the visually handicapped person. In this paper, we describe a situation-awareness white cane which support and guide walking of the visually handicapped person by giving information of surrounding situation through connection of a white cane and a mobile device. There are easily accessible buttons in the situation-awareness white cane. These buttons is connected with the mobile device by blue-tooth, so by pushing these buttons, the visually handicapped person can receive sound-guidance. As a result, the visually handicapped person can walk more safely by getting more information of situation.

• Journal of Information Technology Services
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• v.6 no.1
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• pp.17-30
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• 2007

The rapid development of information and communication technologies has resulted in rapid increase in the qualitative and quantitative information that can be accessed by information technology. Furthermore an enormous amount of information is provided in various formats. However, there are a group of people who are not able to even approach to targeted information due to physical or environmental problems. Visually handicapped users constitute a class of these users. In this paper, a method of developing user interface for web-based education service is described for the visually handicapped users to access information more efficiently. First, this paper analyzed the problems of visually handicapped users to access information targeting representative domestic sites that supply education services. And based on the results of the above analyses, Nest, this paper explains the web-based education service interface implementation method according to types of the content to be delivered. Lastly, the validity of this method is provided by testing a web page based on the implementation method according to the types of content.

• Proceedings of the IEEK Conference
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• 2001.06c
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• pp.5-8
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• 2001

The computer programs based upon graphic user interface(GUI) became commonplace with the advance of computer technology. Nevertheless, programs for the visually-handicapped have still remained at the level of TTS(text to speech) programs and this prevents many visually-handicapped from enjoying the pleasure and convenience of the information age. This paper is, paying attention to the importance of character recognition in images, about the configuration of the system that converts text in the image selected by a user to the speech by extracting the character part, and carrying out character recognition.