Hello everybody: I am slowly over time posting this request to all the mailing lists I know and think might be related to the topic. I am hoping to gather enough interest that we can develop standardize systems and get some implementation. One of the irritations I have whenever I'm reading something technical in text is the lack of useful representation of scientific or technical notation. It happens in every book and document in every format from ASCII text to HTML and even in documents such as MS Word. To a small extent we have some rough accessibility with basic mathematical texts because most character sets offer some amount of arithmetic related symbols and they are often necessary for programming and/or scientific calculations. Even then representing calculus or other higher mathematical concepts are not well worked out and certainly not standardized in any way. What there is currently is a mixed bag of .tex mark-up or text representation of Nemith code symbols. I would like to attempt to find standardized or common textual systems and pull them together in one place as a resource for other people writing new materials or editing previously available documents to easily use. if there are no predefined systems, I would like to try to build systems for each of the technical and scientific disciplines for future writers and editors to use. I would also like to put together a group of volunteers to edit at least one text in each discipline so visually impaired students and readers can get past this frustrating situation. We would make the books and papers available through the bookserve project or other facilities if any are interested in participating. Some of the disciplines which I believe need systems found or developed include: physics, chemistry, electronics, mathematics and any others people feel should be considered. If any of you know of any representational systems for any technical or scientific disciplines please write or contact me in someway to let me know about them. If anyone is interested in being involved in gathering and developing symbolic systems or discussing them also please contact me. If you or someone you know might be interested in helping edit books and papers using these symbolic systems, once again please contact me. Depending on how much response I receive will determine what type of on going communication I put together. If you have suggestions for that I'd like to hear them as well. I can be contacted at kirk at reisers.ca or on the #speakup channel on freenode.net. Kirk Reiser -- Kirk Reiser The Computer Braille Facility e-mail: kirk at braille.uwo.ca University of Western Ontario phone: (519) 661-3061
