Books on the internet are alive. They do not get finished and published. They just get added to, edited, hyper-linked, and archived. This means that knowledge has to be managed by some kind of institution. This is our attempt, at the Institute for Innovative Blind Navigation, to manage the knowledge about wayfinding technologies for people who are blind.
The term "textbook" is used here unconventionally. This entire website is an information resource about wayfinding for the blind and visually impaired individual. This particular section is called a "textbook" because we are focusing specifically on technologies used to assist blind wayfinding (i.e. there is a specific, academic focus). Other parts of the website are about blindness related resources, strategies for teaching orientation and mobility to children, and details about the Institute for Innovative Blind Navigation. For an overview, return to the index page for the website.
The information contained here is targeted for a wide audience. We hope orientation and mobility specialists and students studying the field will find our work helpful. We hope parents and consumers will use the resources freely. We welcome inventors and experts in related professions whom we hope will find value in this work. We also welcome all of these individuals to contribute to the knowledge base, to suggest additions or needed changes.
To contribute to this work, contact the author of the textbook Doug Baldwin at the address below:
IIBN is also using this wayfinding textbook as a template for the state-of-the-art monograph that we are mandated to complete as part of our NEC Foundation of American grant- issued in 2005 for the World Congress on Blind Navigation Technologies, in Baltimore, Maryland. Whole sections of the wayfinding textbook will be used (and edited as necessary) for the published monograph
Acknowledgements Collaboration, Funding, and Leadership
Current state of Wayfinding Technology: Chapters on Technology Categories
Virtual Wayfinding Coalition Monograph