An eBook to accompany the printed version we designed in collaboration with Mary Duignan illustrator, who was also the workshop facilitator for parents and toddlers group. The ai of the workshop was to get, both adults and children to create art that would be used in the book. this was a great success with many artworks making the final edition and added to by Mary to finish it off. Our goal was to work with the illustrator to put it all together in a cohesive manner and then create an interactive eBook. It cleverly incorporates English, Arabic and Irish and includes sounds and moving pictures along with audio in the 3 languages.
It was quite interesting having to design using Arabic as the text is written from right to left and therefore had to use Adobe's World Ready composer for it to appear correctly. However, we did have difficulty with some of it, especially when following curves or writing around boxes - like the edges of some pages. Another difficulty was making sure the text had not altered when added using the World Ready composer. With the English and Irish versions we were easily able to see if a text was different, but as none of us are any way knowledgable in Arabic the changes in font meant we could not fully guarantee that some of the text hadn't
been changed. It meant having to go back and forth with the translators to ensure all text was correct and the meaning hadn't changed.
Adding the voiceovers in three languages was also quite time consuming as we needed to make sure that the recordings were made with enough space between each text so we could position each on the correct page. As they were recorded at home by the native speakers - there wasn't enough budget to bring them into a recording booth - we had to give clear instructions for them to follow. This included how to best record the voice making sure there were no other noises in the room. It is amazing when you sit and listen to what you consider a quiet place how many sounds can actually be heard - the hum of a computer fan, the drone of a fridge, or even sporadic sounds such as dogs barking in the distance or cars passing by on the road outside.
We eventually made it with everyone putting in a great effort and we'd like to take this time to thank them all. Although, the launch was delayed due to the Covid-19 outbreak it was eventually launched by the outgoing Cathaoirleach of Roscommon County Council, Cllr Pascal Fitzmaurice for Roscommon Library Service.