Grammatek's neural Icelandic text-to-speech technology now narrates textbooks for Hljóðbókasafn Íslands, the national library serving dyslexic and print-disabled students, after a 2022 government grant — with an automated STEM/mathematics reader in development for 2025.
Details
Maturity
Scaling
Promoter
Grammatek ehf. / Hljóðbókasafn Íslands (National Library for the Blind, Visually Impaired and Print-Disabled)
Period
Government grant awarded Jan 2022; first AI-narrated audiobook launched Apr 2024; STEM/mathematics reader in development 2025
Hljóðbókasafn Íslands is Iceland's state-mandated national library, operating under the Ministry of Education, serving people who cannot read ordinary print — including students with dyslexia alongside blind and visually impaired patrons. In January 2022 it received Iceland's largest Library Fund (Bókasafnasjóður) grant, 6 million ISK, for the 'Hljóðstafi' project to build software integrating synthetic narration with text in accessible format. Grammatek ehf., a Reykjavík-based language-technology company building neural Icelandic text-to-speech, partnered with the library to deliver it.
Activities
In April 2024 the library launched its first AI-narrated audiobook — a nonfiction title read by a synthetic narrator named 'Gunnar', with synchronized text-follow-along. The partnership has since expanded to multiple educational and reference titles aimed at secondary-school students, with an Icelandic STEM reader — including automated reading-aloud of mathematical formulas, a technically difficult text-to-speech problem — in active production as of 2025. In November 2024, the project was presented at 'Menntun og máltækni mætast' (Education and Language Technology Meet), a conference co-organised by Almannarómur, the University of Iceland's School of Education and Innovation Centre for Education, HIM, and the City of Reykjavík.
Conclusions
The partnership demonstrates a working, expanding AI text-to-speech accessibility service for print-disabled and dyslexic students, but no independently verified outcome evaluation (e.g., reading-comprehension gains) is currently available.
Implementation
Indicative cost
Low (< €50k) — The only published budget figure is the January 2022 Library Fund (Bókasafnasjóður) grant of 6 million ISK (the largest awarded that round) for the Hljóðstafi project; no further public cost figures are available for the expanded title list or STEM reader.
Time to results
Medium (1–3 years) — Grant awarded January 2022; first AI-narrated audiobook launched April 2024; expansion to multiple titles and a dedicated STEM/mathematics reader in active production as of 2025.
Staffing & skills
Hljóðbókasafn Íslands (national library, project owner, under the Ministry of Education), Grammatek ehf. (neural text-to-speech technology partner), Almannarómur, University of Iceland School of Education/Innovation Centre for Education, HIM, City of Reykjavík (conference/dissemination partners)
Conditions for success
State-mandated library with an existing mission and legal mandate to serve print-disabled patrons, providing institutional grounding
Targeted public Library Fund grant financing a specific, well-scoped technical deliverable ('Hljóðstafi')
Iterative rollout — starting with one title, then expanding to multiple educational/reference titles and a dedicated STEM/mathematics reader — rather than attempting full-catalogue coverage immediately
Common failure modes
No independently verified outcome evaluation currently exists, so reading-comprehension or usage impact cannot yet be confirmed
Automated reading-aloud of mathematical formulas is described as a technically difficult text-to-speech problem still in active development, indicating unresolved technical risk for the STEM reader specifically
A relevant Icelandic government evaluation report could not be retrieved to confirm its findings
Where it fits
Governance type
national library operating under a government ministry, delivered via private-sector technology partner
Scale
national (single small country)
Income level
high-income
Data sources
Where this practice's information was retrieved from, and when.
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