Bookshare Blog

Published July 18, 2012

Non-English Accents in Braille

A guest post from a member of the Bookshare Collection Development team and a Bookshare Member, Liz Halperin. Ever wonder how braille handles non-English accent marks? Things like umlauts or tildes or other accent marks from Spanish, French, German, Danish, Polish, and so on? Remember, in braille, everything happens with just 6 dots (or 8 dots for digital or computer braille) in a group. (See other resources about basic braille structure of dots and cells, uncontracted and contracted braille, etc.) So how can braille indicate there is an accent mark over the e in the French word café or the…

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Published July 10, 2012

Bookshare Members’ Enthusiastic Comments

A post from Jim Fruchterman, CEO of Benetech Every week our Bookshare team hears from our Members. I am thrilled to get copied on these emails: it reminds me of why we do here at Benetech! I appreciate that so many of our Members take the time to write and thank our team. Changes often inspire Members to write and it is so helpful to hear about what works (and what doesn’t work so we can fix it). The recent upgrades in our Bookshare site and service such as the new audio formats, images, and image descriptions motivated several Members…

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Published July 5, 2012

Planning a Trip with Bookshare

The communication below from Bookshare member Gayle Yarnall, recently retired from The Perkins School for the Blind, inspired a blog about planning a trip with Bookshare. A year ago, almost exactly, we booked tickets for a retirement trip to Paris, and six months after that we booked an apartment through VRBO.com. Now it was up to me to plan the trip. For me, one of the best things about planning a trip is reading all I can about where I am going. You could read books about Paris, by Paris writers and about people who wrote about Paris for the…

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Published June 28, 2012

Fun Summer Titles for Adults

Any game players? My Life as a Night Elf Priest – Examines an online community the size of Ohio – the players of World of Warcraft. Bestsellers for the beach and beyond: Calico Joe – John Grisham’s latest novel follows the divergent paths of Joe Castle, a rookie hitter for the Chicago Cubs, and Warren Tracey, a hard-throwing Mets pitcher. It Worked for Me: In Life and Leadership – Colin Powell, one of America’s most admired public figures, reveals the principles that have shaped his life and career in this inspiring and engrossing memoir. Maine – Three generations of…

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Published June 28, 2012

Fun Summer Titles for Kids

Try these stories about games: Gollywhopper Games – Twelve-year-old Gil Goodson competes against thousands of other children at extraordinary puzzles, stunts, and more in hopes of a fresh start for his family. Goblins Don’t Play Video Games (Bailey School Kids #37)– Could the new computer teacher be the king goblin in Melody’s video game? The Summer Olympics are next month. Get in the mood with these stories: Buzz Beamer’s Radical Olympics – Buzz offers wacky suggestions for new summer Olympic sports Hour of the Olympics (Magic Tree House #16)– No girls allowed at the ancient Olympics! What will Jack…

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Published June 28, 2012

Fun Summer Titles for Teens

Justin Bieber’s Own Story: First Step 2 Forever: My Story. By Justin Bieber. “It’s a big, big world It’s easy to get lost in it…” -Justin Bieber, “Up”. I love those lines in the lyrics. Sometimes I feel like that’s what everyone’s expecting. Fun stories about video games and gadgets: Attack of the Video Villains (Hardy Boys #106) – Joe, Frank and Chet attend a national Hack Attack tournament in New York City and get involved in a deadly video game mystery! Daniel X: Game Over – A duo of evil extraterrestrials is plotting to control kids around the…

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Published June 27, 2012

GoogleServe Volunteers Write Image Descriptions

On June 14, Google invited Bookshare to participate in their annual GoogleServe volunteerism week. We were warmly welcomed by Googlers, Seth Marbin and Kat Pham-Ouyang, who set us up in a computer lab. Before I had read through the instructions, our highly astute group of volunteers had already registered on the Poet image description tool and delved into the guidelines. Nineteen Google employees participated in the highly successful event (two remotely). In just four hours, Google volunteers wrote over 1,200 descriptions for images in four different text books! With the great success of this event, we plan to host many…

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Published June 20, 2012

Publishers, Industry Moguls, and Disability Advocates Gather to Discuss Access

Saturday, June 9, 2012 wrapped up the first Inclusive Publishing conference hosted by the National Federation of the Blind (NFB) at Jernigan Institute in Baltimore, MD, and the DAISY Consortium. NFB and DAISY teamed up with representatives from 20 countries, including Benetech/Bookshare, U.S. K–12 and higher education publishers (Pearson, Cengage, and SAS), and industry moguls (Apple, Google, and Adobe) to collaborate on issues of access affecting millions who cannot read print. Participants met to: Discuss current levels of accessibility in global and U.S. markets Share the landscape of today’s eBook evolution in publishing and education Collaborate and exchange ideas on…

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Published June 14, 2012

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Published June 14, 2012

Benetech Wins “Do-Gooder” Award

Atlassian, developers of software that helps innovators everywhere plan, build and launch great software, holds an annual “Do-Gooder” competition, in which they ask their customers with Community Licenses to talk about how they use their products. After 6 months at Benetech, one of our product managers felt compelled to express her wonder at how much good we do for people. Her entry below was the winning entry, for a prize of $10,000 of unrestricted funds for Benetech and 2 passes to the 2012 Atlassian Summit. Thank you, Ginny Grant, for your great work at Benetech, your haiku, and your application…

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