Na­tion­al Li­brary and In­for­ma­tion Sys­tem Au­thor­i­ty (NALIS) en­tered in­to an agree­ment with the World In­tel­lec­tu­al Prop­er­ty Or­ga­ni­za­tion’s (WIPO) Ac­ces­si­ble Books Con­sor­tium (ABC) for vi­su­al­ly im­paired and oth­er­wise print dis­abled in­di­vid­u­als to have ac­cess to a va­ri­ety of source ma­te­r­i­al and lit­er­a­ture con­tent. De­tails fol­low in this press re­lease from NALIS:

On March 8, 2022, the Na­tion­al Li­brary and In­for­ma­tion Sys­tem Au­thor­i­ty (NALIS) en­tered in­to an Au­tho­rized En­ti­ty Agree­ment with the Ac­ces­si­ble Books Con­sor­tium (ABC) of the Gene­va-based World In­tel­lec­tu­al Prop­er­ty Or­ga­ni­za­tion (WIPO). NALIS worked close­ly with the Trinidad and To­ba­go In­tel­lec­tu­al Prop­er­ty Of­fice (TTIPO) of the Of­fice of the At­tor­ney Gen­er­al and the Min­istry of Le­gal Af­fairs to achieve this ob­jec­tive.

Blind, vi­su­al­ly im­paired and oth­er­wise print dis­abled per­sons can now have ac­cess to a vast amount of in­for­ma­tion ma­te­r­i­al and lit­er­a­ture through the ABC Glob­al Book Ser­vice made pos­si­ble as a re­sult of the sign­ing of the “Au­tho­rized En­ti­ty” Agree­ment be­tween NALIS and WIPO. The Au­tho­rized En­ti­ty Agree­ment lays down the terms and con­di­tions for the cross-bor­der ex­change of Ac­ces­si­ble For­mat Copies among “Au­tho­rized En­ti­ties” par­tic­i­pat­ing in the ABC Glob­al Book Ser­vice, which is man­aged by WIPO, for this cat­e­go­ry of ben­e­fi­cia­ries who are reg­is­tered mem­bers of NALIS li­braries.

This his­toric Agree­ment fol­lows Trinidad and To­ba­go’s ac­ces­sion to the Mar­rakesh Treaty to Fa­cil­i­tate Ac­cess to Pub­lished Works for Per­sons who are Blind, Vi­su­al­ly Im­paired or Oth­er­wise Print Dis­abled (Mar­rakesh Treaty) on Oc­to­ber 4, 2019 and its in­cor­po­ra­tion in­to the Copy­right Act Chap. 82:80 by Act No. 14 of 2020. This process was over­seen by the Of­fice of the At­tor­ney Gen­er­al and the Min­istry of Le­gal Af­fairs through the TTIPO.

NALIS is recog­nised by the Gov­ern­ment to pro­vide ed­u­ca­tion­al, in­struc­tion­al train­ing, adap­tive read­ing or in­for­ma­tion ac­cess to the ben­e­fi­cia­ries on a non-prof­it ba­sis.

The sign­ing of this his­toric Agree­ment fa­cil­i­tates ac­cess to over sev­en hun­dred and thir­ty thou­sand (730,000) ti­tles in eighty lan­guages in a range of ac­ces­si­ble for­mats for vi­su­al­ly im­paired and oth­er­wise print dis­abled per­sons. This mo­men­tous sign­ing is con­sis­tent with NALIS’ man­date, as out­lined in the NALIS’ Act 18 of 1998 to “pro­vide a na­tion­al in­for­ma­tion ser­vice for the ben­e­fit of the phys­i­cal­ly dis­ad­van­taged and per­sons in in­sti­tu­tions.”

Trinidad and To­ba­go joins the list of coun­tries from the Caribbean re­gion which al­ready ben­e­fit from the ABC such as An­tigua and Bar­bu­da, Ja­maica and St. Lu­cia.