Publishers Weekly - News & Trends on 60+ Readers

Book publishers are making changes to large print books and e-Readers in response to the huge number of age 60+ Baby Boomers entering the market. According to a Publishers' Weekly article on "Seeing the Big Picture", Baby Boomers account for 78 million or a fourth of America's population. Here are some changes that are happening:

• Type size will increase from the traditional 11 font size to 14 font size (not the 16 font size of Large Print books).
• More publishers will release the larger print books versions at the same time as the standard books, thanks to technology that makes this easier.
• E-Books and other new digital readers have not yet impacted the bottom line of large-print publishers, but it is just a matter of time.
  

ElderGadget - a website on Products with Elder-Friendly Features

The San Francisco Chronicle carried an article about how the Apple iPad was popular with seniors. Chronicle staff reporter Ryan Kim wrote "IPAD Appears to be Clicking With Seniors".

The article also referenced ElderGadget, a useful website that carries news and reviews of products that have "elder-friendly" features. See http://www.eldergadget.com/ Product categories reviewed by ElderGadget include about a hundred products beyond computer and other technology products. Check it out.

[Note: Remember to refer to the online tutorial "Discovering Assistive Technology" because the tutorial's links are updated as new user-friendly products become available.]

READABILITY -- Tool to Cut Clutter

Readability is a powerful new cool tool by arc90 that eliminates website clutter when you want to just focus on the content and not the surrounding "stuff". It is meant for newspaper articles, not home pages. According to its website, it is a 2-step process select your settings; add your bookmarklet. It works like a charm! Try it on an article from the SF Chronicle on SFGate.
See the video:

Readability - Installation Video for Firefox, Safari & Chrome from Arc90 on Vimeo.

Discovery Learning - Tutorial

We often hear how people "get lost in time when online". Do you like the rhyme?

It is true that we often "stumble upon" interesting items and follow links to more details or additional websites. Discovery Learning is another name for that. In these, the reader learns about a topic such as new technology tools for persons with disabilities or communicating in the 21st century, but they use their own interests and passions to learn MORE about the technology tools that are relevant to them.

Here are a few discovery learning tutorials that you can explore:

• Discovering Assistive Technology: This tutorial is brought to you by the California School Library Association and TransAccess, a community-based organization that provides persons with disabilities access to computer adaptive technology and career transition services so that they can achieve their desired education and employment, and improve their quality of life.

• Learning Web 2.0: Librarians at the College of San Mateo offer this introductory tutorial on blogs, wikis, image creation, news feeds, and more -- at no cost -- enjoy!