Jodi Mattes Trust for accessible digital culture

We cannot offer a cash prize, but starting in 2011, we offer all shortlisted projects  - which will be appraised in detail, including by users; feedback. It's like a small consultancy report that we give you in return for your time and engagement. Of course, we can only send you the report a ddicuss it with you, once the Jodi Awards have been given.

“The International Award is a real benefit for our library. It is very important to us and supports all our funding applications. We will continue our commitment for disabled people.

A lot of libraries know about our project now and hope they will provide the similar services as our library. The Award was covered by Czech TV.”

“For Dedicon and "Loket aangepast-lezen" the award is motivational. It gives recognition to the many employees who are working on the project. The award is of course helpful for the perception that decision makers have of us.

Since receiving the award, we have radically fine-tuned the service (e.g. the online reader) and added advanced features to the online catalogue and external special streaming devices. We will organise the software of the operating system in accordance with the Online Daisy standards, so the new online Daisy devices can work with it.”

“The Jodi Award has meant we have had a great deal of subsequent interest from outside of our organisation. We now have funding promised from the Raynes Foundation and the Arts Council.

Other organisations became interested in what we are doing, including the Wellcome Trust ,the Heritage Lottery Fund and the Science Museum.

We are currently co-curating an exhibition with the Science Museum’s curator of psychological artefacts.”

“Winning the Jodi Award was a huge surprise and very great honour. The Visually Impaired Readers Group who piloted the scheme were all thrilled to be included in a trial that won such a prestigious award.

Since the pilot, we have purchased 50 more Navigators, a site licence and books to download from Audio-Read, Australia.

We now have other Library users trying out the Navigators and have recently made them accessible to borrowers from the Home Library Service. Everyone who uses them is impressed at how easy they are to use and how many books can be loaded at any one time. The Navigators also appeal to people of all ages, and those with mobility problems such as arthritis, have found little problem in using them.

The future of the Navigator and other similar MP3 players is dependent on the new book downloads that publishers are now trialling and we are currently investigating how we can respond to the demand using new technology.”

“The Jodi award did raise the profile of i-Map with other museums and galleries and within Tate. It meant a lot to the people who had worked hard on the project. BT, then sponsors of our website, were very pleased and this helped improve our relationship with our sponsors.

By building a resource for visually impaired people, we actually created a resource that is incredibly accessible to everyone. Since i-Map, Tate has carried out a number of other smaller online projects to provide resources for the hard of hearing and dyslexic users. I think i-Map and the Jodi Award has also raised awareness of accessibility issues within the web team and has helped us to improve accessibility for the whole of the Tate website.”