Remember Arkenstone, before Bookshare?
In January every year, we often make resolutions and look forward in eager anticipation to the year ahead. However, January is also an opportune time to reflect on the past and remember what life was like just a short time ago.
For example, today we have Bookshare and its vast library, ease of access, and tools for reading. However, printed content has not always been this accessible to people with print disabilities. Bookshare represents huge advances in accessibility and availability of content for individuals with print disabilities.
The path to Bookshare, under the leadership of CEO Jim Fruchterman, begins in the late 1970’s. His story about learning pattern recognition technology that would guide a missile to its target is legendary. He realized that if software could recognize military targets, why couldn’t software recognize letters to help blind people read! His idea eventually led to the invention of Optical Character Recognition (OCR) technology that could read just about any document, the founding of Arkenstone, and the first affordable reading machines for the blind.
If you aren’t familiar with the story, it is well-told in two articles from th
e DAISY Planet and an article in MIT’s Innovations Journal.
Arkenstone at last gave Jim the ability to apply his idea and create a product for social good, his lifelong passion.
Jay Leventhal, an early fan of Jim’s, recently said:
At that time, Jim was a young scrapper of a man, a rocket scientist and engineer from Stanford, CA. He had a flare about him and an energy that could entice a crowd. His ability to engage people with enthusiasm and fantasy ideas was contagious. I believed in Jim and his vision to build a reading system for blind people through OCR.” (Optical Character Recognition) and I guess he decided to choose this direction of social good when one of his rockets exploded.
Jay’s belief was rewarded, and Jim’s vision came to fruition. Early users were thrilled with the change in their lives. Paul Henrichsen, one of the early users said:
I remember the old days with the TrueScan[i] board. We really thought we had something great! We could actually go to the bookstore, buy a book and scan it. We knew that if it took the OCR over two minutes to recognize a page, that there would probably be a poorly recognized page. If it was under two minutes, we knew we were in luck and would more than likely get a good scan.
We used to scan a book in batch mode without doing the OCR; then, when we went to bed, we would let the Arkenstone software do the recognition because it took six hours or more. We would laugh about how great it was and how we really thought we had something. Now, it takes seconds to OCR a page. I can’t tell you how many novels I scanned daily and then let them recognize at night while I was asleep. And, wasn’t that wonderful!”
Arkenstone changed the lives of families too. Mrs. Bryant, the mother of Zach Bryant, a young man with cerebral palsy, scanned a lot of books with Arkenstone. She said, “We saw Zach’s reading level jump three grades. What a difference assistive technologies can make.”
In the end, Arkenstone changed a tremendous number of lives. Reading machines that recognized more than a dozen languages were sold to over 35,000 individuals, schools and libraries in 60 countries. Arkenstone led breakthroughs in price barriers as well. As a deliberately non-profit social enterprise, Arkenstone steadily kept dropping the price of its reading machines, from $5000 to $1200. Access to content, instead of being affordable by a few hundred, became affordable by thousands. Arkenstone was one of the world’s most successful examples of a high technology social enterprise, using an innovative business model to achieve major social objectives in education, employment and independence. In 2000, a for-profit company bought the Arkenstone business assets. Jim changed the name of the nonprofit to Benetech and used the proceeds to start even more social enterprises.
To be continued: Stories about the early days of Bookshare. Please subscribe to the blog for the next installment.
If you’d like to contribute to the story of years ago, please add a comment!
[i] The TrueScan boardwas a card inserted into a PC specifically to perform OCR. PCs didn’t have enough processing power for OCR.
Bookshare Wins eSchool Media Readers’ Choice Award
Winning an award is a perfect beginning to a new year! eSchool Media has announced the winners of its 2012 Readers’ Choice Awards that recognize
Readers' Choice Award Winner
educational technology products and services, and Bookshare was chosen as one of the 50 winners! Readers of eSchoolNews.com, eCampusNews.com, and eClassroomNews.com voted for their top hardware, software, websites and services. From among 1400 votes describing how a product improves teaching, learning or school administration, Bookshare was selected as on of the top.
The list of all 50 winners is posted on the eSchool news website.
Many thanks to eSchool News for the recognition! 2012 is off to a very good start. Happy reading in the new year!
Bookshare International News
We want to welcome Kristina Pappas as the new Bookshare International Program Manager.
Kristina Pappas, new International Program Manager
Prior to joining the team, Kristina worked at Farmigo, an Internet startup company that creates web-based software for community supported food programs such as CSAs; at the Natural Resources Defense Council; and at Fair Trade USA. She worked for over 10 years in international sales and foreign rights in the publishing industry, at IDG Books, McGraw-Hill, and Chronicle Books. Kristina holds a BA in Comparative Literature from Stanford University and an MBA in Sustainability from Presidio Graduate School. Kristina provided the following update on the international program.
Bookshare’s international presence continues to grow, with members in over 30 countries. We recently welcomed three new partner organizations who are reaching out to the community with print disabilities in their countries: NLB (Norwegian Library of Talking Books and Braille) in Norway, Hoerbuecherei des OSBV (Talking Book Library) in Austria, and the Dorina Nowill Foundation in Brazil.
International members now have access to more than 50,000 titles in most countries, including books in Spanish, German, French, Hindi, and Tamil, and a robust collection of textbooks in Afrikaans! A diverse Bookshare team is working on a special project with Qatar’s Mada Assistive Technology Center to add Arabic-language books to the collection; these will be available in early 2012.
Meanwhile, in India, 500 of our chopped-up books have found a new life with Vedavalli Vidyalaya in Ranipet (rural Tamil Nadu). Vedavalli Vidyalaya serves over 20 villages in and around Ranipet and is one of the few schools in a 100-mile radius to deliver high-quality education to students who cannot travel to the nearest city, Chennai. This is their very first library and the children are quite thrilled with the books they inherited (all nicely rebound, thanks to Bookshare’s local book processing partner, Worth Trust).
Boy Scout Manuals on Bookshare!
Credit for this post goes to Bryan Wendell, with the Boy Scouts of America. Here’s the original.
For some boys, reading doesn’t come easy. And that makes the Boy Scouts of America a challenging place. The Boy Scout Handbook. Merit Badge pamphlets. BSA training manuals. Daunting prospects for boys with print disabilities.
Scout searches for books.
Fortunately, the BSA has some great resources for those Scouts.
Starting with Bookshare. This summer, the BSA signed a memorandum of understanding that cements a partnership aimed at improving the Scouting experience for boys and girls with print disabilities.
Bookshare’s cool online library (bookshare.org) allows Scouts in your pack, troop, team, or crew to “listen to books, see words and hear them read as they are highlighted on a screen, read in Braille, and much more.”
The best part? It’s free for U.S. students with a qualified print disability (visual impairment, a physical disability, or a learning or reading disability).
For non-students, there’s a $25 setup fee and $50 per year charge. But if you use the promo code SCOUTS, Bookshare will waive the $25 setup fee. Scout leaders who qualify can have access to the books.
Once logged in, users can view or listen to Scouting materials on desktops, laptops, iPads, iPhones, MP3 players, and assistive technology devices. Check out this PDF for complete details about the program.
I should point out that providing resources for Scouts with print disabilities is nothing new for the BSA. The organization has created Braille and large-print versions of its publications for years.
Nearly 28 publications — all current — are available on the site right now, and more will be added over the next six to nine months. The goal, I’m told, is to keep adding publications until the complete Merit Badge Series and most commonly used manuals become available.
The site features non-Scout materials, too, including children’s books and literature, newspapers, magazines, and textbooks for grade school and college.
Scouts with print disabilities don’t have to feel alone while slogging through all that material. Direct those Scouts — and their parents — to Bookshare today.
Scouts who are Bookshare members: there are merit badge books. Maybe you can get a merit badge over the holidays! Theater, Citizenship, Scouting Heritage, First Aid, Robotics, Family Life, Personal Fitness, Geocaching, and more.
Good News! Bookshare Wins Award!
Good news! District Administration (DA) Magazine has announced its 2011 Readers’ Choice Top 100 Products awards, and Bookshare is one of the winners! After conducting a thorough review of hundreds of submissions and research into the products, the editorial staff picked Bookshare as one of the Top 100. The winners include products for districts of all sizes and technologies for many uses, from information systems to assistive technologies. It is a great honor to be included in such a list! We thank DA for recognizing the benefits Bookshare offers students with disabilities.
Nominations require testimonials from school administrators that explain the impact of a product or a service on a district and students. Other than the one quote posted with the announcement, we don’t know who submitted testimonials on our behalf, or what they said, but we thank all of our nominators!
With his submission, Randy Pine, IEP teacher, District 27Q (N.Y.), said, “Bookshare has leveled the playing field for students with reading disabilities. All students can now take part in discussions and for the first time for most, feel positive about themselves and their school experience.” His words echo the sentiments we hear from educators around the country.
You can read more about the nomination and selection process on the DA website.
Winners are listed in random order on the DA website. Here’s the page announcing Bookshare.
