As guest editors of this JVIB special issue on technology, we had the option to add an additional feature on any topic we felt was relevant to the JVIB readership. Our top choice? An interview of the man we felt was the most important technologist in the field: George Kerscher. Dr. Kerscher wears many hats. He serves as the secretary general of the DAISY Consortium (the international group of libraries for blind people) and the president of the International Digital Publishing Forum (the primary commercial electronic book standards organization). We caught up with him in Asilomar, California, fight after the national DIAGRAM (Digital Image and Graphic Resources for Accessible Materials) Research and Development Center meeting. Dr. Kerscher is a coprincipal investigator of this center, and he is employed by Learning Ally (formerly known as Recording for the Blind & Dyslexic). He has received numerous awards and, last year, the American Foundation for the Blind recognized Dr. Kerscher with its Migel Medal, the highest award in the blindness field. Most of all, George Kerscher had a vision of the importance that electronic books would have to people with disabilities back in the 1980s. Unlike many people who foresee the future, Dr. Kerscher dedicated himself to making that future of accessible books come to pass. Whether it is an e-book on a Kindle or an iPad, a Talking Book from the National Library Service for the Blind and Physically Handicapped (NLS), or a DAISY book from Bookshare or Learning Ally, Dr. Kerscher is the man behind the technology that makes that all possible. Let us hear from the man himself, in his own words! QUESTION: WHERE DID MR. EBOOK COME FROM? GK: I've always loved literature, and my degree was in English education, but blindness took this away. In 1987, I started using college textbooks supplied to me by authors in digital form, and I was reading them using a screen reader, and it was amazing! It was so much easier to take the class when you had the book! People told me what I was doing was goofy. Couldn't be done. But, if the whole world tells you you're wrong, and you still believe you're right, that's confidence! The traditional organizations serving people with disabilities simply didn't get it when I was starting on this. But, Recording for the Blind soon did, and they merged [with my small organization]: That was my very first paycheck! And, the tech[nology] community got it. They were our greatest supporters because they understood the technology and got the humanitarian application. I believe that assistive technology access is fundamental.... I've been a screen reader user since 1986, [and I believe that] every blind person needs this fundamental access to technology and information. This [provision of access] used to be the domain of the organizations that serve people who are blind, visually impaired or print disabled--organizations like Learning Ally (formerly RFB&D), the National Library Service, and Bookshare. Over the last 10 years we've seen a shift to mainstream access with technology like the web and e-books. These libraries funded, through the DAISY Consortium, key developments in e-book technology that are now part of the mainstream. We have to thank those tried and true organizations that have been working in this domain, and they are going to have a big part to play going forward. There's a split between text-to-speech libraries (like Bookshare) and those that focus on human speech (Learning Ally and NLS). I think people like human speech, but I think things will change in the future with better quality TTS. The text side of things is going to be more and more available commercially. We are looking at big changes ahead in the publishing industry. The book as we know it is going to change. There are big opportunities ahead, as well as big dangers. For people with learning disabilities, access to the text is the main problem we'll need to solve. …