A blind, in most cases, experience the huge lack of books for his / her work, study or
leisure. This problem would accelerate the disability in knowledge-oriented society by
preventing the blind from developing one's skill and self-achievement through accumulating
cultural capital. Fortunately, the enhancement in digitalizing alternative books technology and
legislation amendment of Library Law in 2009 will improve the situation greatly.
This paper is about budget guideline to produce a digital alternative book for the blind.
In order to maximize program effectiveness and financial efficiency, a guideline is very
demanding at this point, especially, that the role of public sector is rapidly expanding in
providing digitalized books for the visually impaired. To accurately measure the related cost,
three kinds of production method and five types of original textbook format are defined, and
the time length was measured to create the digital content and do proof reading in each
production method and type of book format. Then, I calculated labor cost based on the time
length measured. Finally, the total cost is estimated by adding general management cost
and reasonable profit to the total labor cost.
In result, total cost varies depending on production method and printed book format. In all
types of printed book, the production in use of HWP source file is most economic, and the
use of Quark file is in second and manual typing is most expensive. Interestingly, the cost
to make a book with tables in alternative format quite similar in three production methods.
Key words : production cost guidelines, alternative digital book, the blind