Some vendors’ database platforms have text-to-speech audio functionality built-in that allows a user to listen to a computer-generated reading of their text-based content such as magazine, newspaper, and journal articles or e-book text. Not all vendors offer this.
The following are lists of the databases at Seneca Libraries that do and do not offer this functionality. Note that when it is available in a database, it is only for the HTML version of full-text content, not PDF. Also note that initial search screens and results lists usually do not have text reading functionality.
For text-to-speech reading of PDF documents, Adobe Reader and Adobe Acrobat provide reading of PDF files that can be downloaded from databases (View > Read Out Loud > Activate Read Out Loud). And some operating systems will even allow you to add different voices to the Settings (e.g. Windows 10). Unfortunately, downloadable versions of PDFs are not available in all of our databases, particularly e-book databases, to take advantage of this.
For Seneca Libraries database content that does not have a built-in text reader, Read&Write Gold and other accessibility software is also available through Seneca’s ITS department, with further assistance in the use of that software available through Accessibility Services.
For information about the Seneca Libraries databases listed below, please e-mail librarytechhelp@senecapolytechnic.ca
ABC-CLIO:
EBSCO:
Gale/Cengage:
LexisNexis:
ProQuest:
Other e-resources with text reading functionality:
EBSCO:
Gale/Cengage:
Knotia:
LexisNexis:
Library of Congress:
ProQuest:
Thomson Reuters (includes Canada Law Book and Carswell/Westlaw):
None of their databases have text reading functionality, even with HTML content:
Other e-resources without text reading functionality:
Unlike the major aggregator vendors -- Gale, EBSCO, etc. -- that may or may not build such audio functionality right into their platforms, free e-resources and free e-journals tend to be from smaller publishers that often don't have the resources to add it to their platforms or interfaces. The only way to find out is to go into a given free e-resource's platform, do some searching, and see if audio playback is there. This was not done for this page.