PRELIMINARY PROCESSESHardwareIn the

PRELIMINARY PROCESSES
Hardware
In the design of the proposed system, a server and a computer with a minimum 2.53 Ghz processor, 4GB DDR2
Ram, 200GB hard disk are needed. Using the existing server to store books in digital media in the Sakarya
University library is considered. The number of computers is limited to one as the initial number and then can be
increased depending on the ratio of users.
Library staff must be convinced of using the system as an active and reliable way. Furthermore the system can also
be used by visually impaired users who did not before. For this reason, the need for a monitor and a mouse
appeared.
During the system work, visually impaired user will direct the system with an input device. At this stage, a choice
must be done between two important input devices. These devices are a keyboard and a microphone. They have
advantages and disadvantages among each other. In this sense, if the keyboard is selected by visually impaired
person who knows to use the keyboard, it is seen to be more efficient and reliable. In the case of visually impaired
person who selects to use the microphone eliminates the requirements of using the keyboard and even without
using their hands he/she can manage the system. But today’s speech recognition technology efficiency, most of the
library environment is not completely isolated from sound and most of visually impaired person can use the
keyboard. Because of all these reasons the keyboard will be preferred in this study. In addition, a scanner is required
for digitization of printed documents in the library.
Software
In addition to serve for visually impaired person, the system must have the software infrastructures that must be
compatible with libraries own automation systems. Thus, the proposed system and library hardware will be used
more efficiently and they can be used like other computers in the library.
Paid or free software can be selected to use in the speech synthesis module. However in this proposed system,
speech synthesis module that we have developed before will be used (YUCEL, 2010).
Most important parts of the system are voice guidance and management parts of the program used by the visually
impaired person. At this stage, the developed software will guide the visually impaired person vocally and then
management will be provided as a result of commands taken from the keyboard. A scanner will be used during the
digitization of the printed documents and books in the library. While scanning the papers of the relevant document,
they are converted to image format and an OCR (Optical Character Recognition) system to translate the photos into
text format is needed. There is much commercial software developed to translate printed documents into digital
media like Fine Reader, ReadIris, etc. For example, if Fine Reader is preferred, we can adapt easily the program to
own developed system by using APIs presented. System requirements of this software can be summarized that 128
MB, 16 GB RAM for every additional processors (in case of multi- processors system), 250 MB empty disk space
for typical program installation, 100 MB empty disk space for running the program, %100 TWAIN compatible
scanner, digital camera or graphics card and a graphics unit (at least 800x600 resolution) with fax
modem.(http://www.abbyy.com/sdk/,2011).