Library of Congress to Use TTS
The Library of Congress has begun to use text-to-speech technology on its Web site, congress.gov, allowing site visitors to listen to bill summaries.
The Library of Congress' choice to implement text-to-speech on its Web site increases accessibility to the text content forcitizens with visual impairments or reading difficulties. The move is expected to also make it easier for people to access online content on mobile devices.
In addition to speech-enabling bills and laws on its own Web site, the Library of Congress also provides text-to-speech on the World Digital Library, an international digital library operated by the United Nations Educational, Scientific and Cultural Organization (UNESCO) and the Library of Congress. The World Digital Library aims to provide information about collections preserved by institutions, libraries, and museums, free of charge and in a universally accessible form. The collections of the World Digital Library are presented in Arabic, English, French, Mandarin Chinese, Portuguese, Russian, and Spanish. To further increase accessibility, an audio version of the collections is also available to all Web site visitors in each of these seven languages.