To that end, I suggest that libraries and library associations develop, promulgate, and defend a Reader Bill of Rights for the Digital Era. Here are a few draft planks:
• The reader should be empowered and able to control the mode of reading on his or her e-reading appliance of choice. Specifically, a TTS feature should be available for all books. TTS is not an audio performance. It enables auditory reading, a mode of reading gaining in popularity. Readers should be able to switch quickly from visual to auditory or tactile reading and back, with olfactory and gustatory options if/when they are developed.
• The reader should be empowered and able to control the presentation aspects of the ebook. For visual reading, this includes factors such as font size, font type, font color, and background color. For TTS audiobooks, this includes factors such as a male or female voice, playback speed (sans Alvin and the Chipmunks), choice of accents (e.g., British, Australian, American Midwest, American Southern for English), with similar accent choices for other languages.
• Readers, individually and in groups, have the right to add to and embellish a text, as long as the embellishments (e.g., notes, highlighting, marginalia, new characters, new episodes) are clearly distinguishable from the primary text.
• The reader has a right to save and share these embellishments, or keep them private.