Bookshare Offers Accessible Books

43,000-Title Digital Library is Free for Blind & Low-Vision Students

Jun 4, 2009

Bookshare readers download books as compressed, encrypted files that can be read with assistive technology such as a screen readers or refreshable braille display.

Bookshare™ is an online library of digital books for people with print disabilities operating under an exception to U.S. law that allows copyrighted digital books to be made available to people with qualifying disabilities. In addition, many publishers and authors volunteer to make their works accessible. Individuals must register as members and provide a proof of a print disability such as blindness or Dyslexia.

Bookshare members download books, textbooks and newspapers in compressed, encrypted files, usually in DAISY (Digital Accessible Information System) or BRF (Braille Refreshable Format.) They then read the material using adaptive technology, typically software that reads the book aloud (text-to-speech) and/or displays the enlarged text of the book on a computer screen, or braille access devices such as refreshable displays.

Through an award from the U.S. Department of Education Office of Special Education Programs (OSEP), Bookshare offers free memberships to U.S. schools and qualifying U.S. students. Non-student memberships cost $50 annually including a one-time $25 set-up fee. Students outside the United States are also eligible to join.

Bookshare’s Digital Library Growing

Bookshare’s growing collection includes more than 43,000 digital books searchable on its website. Members can browse the entire library searching by:

Bookshare offers a number of Special Collections that include both academic and popular titles, including:

Bookshare Partners with U.S. Trade and Textbook Publishers

In April 2009, Bookshare announced partnerships with two dozen leading U.S. trade and K-12 publishers to provide digital content that will add tens of thousands of books in accessible formats to the Bookshare collection. These publishers include Brookings Institution Press, De Capo Press, HarperCollins, Modern Language Association of America, O’Reilly Media, Random House, Scholastic, The Hachette Book Group, and Townsend Press.

These contributions of digital books will reduce the burden of scanning and proofreading traditionally done by volunteers and will add a wealth of accessible books to Bookshare, including children’s books; general trade fiction and nonfiction; national bestsellers; academic, scientific and technical books; and textbooks for students in grades K-12.

Bookshare Videos on YouTube

A number of videos about Bookshare are available on YouTube, including a profile of Bookshare member Steffon Middleton, a student at the Alabama School for the Blind. Steffon is one of four students profiled in a video series that also includes comments from the students’ teachers and parents. Each student is also featured in a shorter “how-to” video in which they demonstrate how they read books from the Bookshare library. Accessible MP3 files of are videos are posted on Bookshare’s Member Stories page.

As technologies enable users to transform digital data into their desired reading format, sites such as Bookshare will play an ever-increasing role in the education and career development of blind and visually impaired persons.

The copyright of the article Bookshare Offers Accessible Books in Blind Students is owned by Andrew Leibs. Permission to republish Bookshare Offers Accessible Books in print or online must be granted by the author in writing.