SuperNova Access Suite Case Study: Supernova - The choice of Edinburgh City Library.

Edinburgh City Libraries and Information Services.

During 1998, Edinburgh City Libraries and Information Services began a £1.8 million project to replace and update their computer and IT facilities. As part of the project, Dolphin was asked to supply its screen reading and magnification software, Supernova. Supernova will allow sight impaired staff and visitors greater access to the libraries' computer systems. Supernova works by magnifying the screen and reading the screen contents via a speech synthesiser or Braille display, depending on the degree of the user's sight impairment.

Today, Libraries are widely used by the public for accessing the Internet. The availability of Supernova in Edinburgh City Libraries means sight impaired staff and visitors can make full use of the library's Internet facilities, a matter of some importance to the curators in light of the Disability Discrimination Act (DDA). Supernova was Edinburgh's preferred choice as it was the only access product to combine magnification and screen reading in one product. The curators were also mindful of future training and support and so wanted a product that was easy to use. Dolphin's technical support department was able to demonstrate some rather compelling statistics:- showing it only received one help call for every five products sold. Mike Fawson, manager of the Technical Support Department, commented that "our statistics are the best in the industry but the goal of the company is to have a product so intuitive that we have minimal requirement for support." Dolphin licensed the software on a multi-user scheme which enabled it to be used throughout all departments on the Libraries' Windows® NT systems, running applications such as Microsoft Office and the Libraries' own information system.

A spokesperson for Edinburgh City Council said of Supernova, "The provision of Supernova will allow the City of Edinburgh Council to provide a service to those with a visual impairment, across the full range of library services in all locations. Having previously been available on a very restricted basis, it will help a significant percentage of the disabled users across the city to access the public facing catalogue or the Internet without requiring assistance from staff." It is intended that all twenty-five of the Community Libraries, the eight Central Library departments and the five mobile library vehicles will run Supernova on all IT equipment used by the public and on PC's used by staff as required.

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