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Bookshare Blog Posts

What We’re Reading {January 7, 2011}: Start the New Year with these Award Winners

There were so many terrific books published in 2010! This week I thought I would share some of the titles that won various awards in 2010. All of these books are available in the Bookshare collection. Happy Reading! 2010 National Book Award Winners Nonfiction: Just Kids by Patti Smith Poetry: Lighthead by Terrance Hayes Young People’s Literature: Mockingbird by Kathryn Erskine Man Booker Prize of 2010: The Finkler Question by Howard Jacobson While these books didn’t win the big prize, they made the short list: Parrot and Olivier in America by Peter Carey Room by Emma Donoghue In a Strange…

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2010 – A Tremendous Year

2010 has been a tremendous year for the Literacy Program at Benetech.  We’ve enjoyed working with all of our members, sponsors, partners, volunteers and funders, and we have much to celebrate together.  Thank you for your support in achieving our mission! Bookshare passed a number of major milestones this year: We are now serving over 120,000 people with print disabilities; Our US members now have access to over 95,000 books and periodicals; Users downloaded over 800,000 books in 2010; Under our Bookshare for Education (B4E) project, we passed our 5 year goal of adding 100,000 student members in under 3…

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What We’re Reading {December 17 2010}: Top Books of 2010

Creating a “best of” list is always a challenge. Especially when it comes to a “best of” list of books. I suspect that’s because what makes a book good is so personal to each of us, it’s very tough to compile a list that is universally liked. So, rather than a “best of” list, I thought I would create a list of the Top 5 books of 2010, selected from the Bookshare most downloaded, New York Times Best of 2010, and Amazon and Barnes & Noble customer favorites, in several categories: Fiction, Literature, Mystery and Thriller, Non-Fiction, Teens, Tweens, and Children. Warning: this is a long list!…

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Act of Generosity Results in More Books and More Members!

A long standing fan of Bookshare, Carole Lake, has once again made a substantial $5,000.00 donation to be used to build Bookshare’s collection. Her generosity is multiplied by the many ways in which these funds are used for books that our Members want to read. Last year, Carole’s donation went towards funding the purchase of books for two of our programs: Bookshare’s Wish List. One longtime Bookshare volunteer, affectionately known as Grandma Cindy, maintains the Wish List of books that volunteers and members would like to see in the collection. Volunteer Recognition Program. Each year Bookshare’s top volunteers are recognized and given the chance…

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Bookshare Partners with InABLE to Provide Accessible Books to Students Across Kenya

Earlier this year Bookshare became part of two programs, Our Reading Spaces based out of Georgia, and Computer Labs for the Blind in Kenya, to provide accessible books for blind and visually impaired students in Kenya. Our Reading Spaces, now known as inABLE, is a charitable organization that establishes reading havens for impoverished children in the rural areas of Kenya. inABLE was founded by Irene Mbari-Kirika after travels back to her homeland of Kenya awakened her to the limited resources, support and challenges that blind and visually impaired students faced. Ms. Mbari-Kirika has focused the inABLE mission on providing computer-based educational tools and improved…

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What We’re Reading {December 10 2010}: Great Books to Read Over the Holidays for Middle and High School Readers

I recently received an email from Emily, one of our student members and a prolific reader. She shared a list of her recently published favorite books and suggested that they might make excellent reading over the holiday break for other student members. This week, with her permission, I’m sharing Emily’s recommended titles, along with a synopsis of each book, with you. Depending on the reader’s maturity level, these books are appropriate for middle and high school readers. Happy Reading! Sweet Little Lies: An L.A. Candy Novel by Lauren Conrad — Jane Roberts was the average girl next door until her and her…

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Bookshare and ReadWorks– Collaboration to Help Improve Literacy Nationwide

What is ReadWorks? ReadWorks provides K-6 teachers and school leaders with a proven, research-based program focused specifically on teaching reading comprehension. ReadWorks, developed by educators, sole mission is to close the achievement gap in reading comprehension throughout the United States. ReadWorks provides: Lessons and units that explicitly teach the essential Concepts of Comprehension©. These are the skills and strategies students must master to be successful readers. Lessons and units with suggested pacing, printable student materials, non-fiction passages with questions and vocabulary, extension activities and assessments. Alignment with every state’s ELA standards plus the Common Core State Standards. Alignment with core…

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Publisher Spotlight: Top Ten from Cambridge University Press

There’s a lot that goes on behind the scenes at Bookshare, and that includes the feed of digital files from our partners. Every month we receive thousands of files from publishers around the world. Over 100 publishers have signed with Bookshare and are donating digital files, including all the major trade publishing houses (Random House, Simon & Schuster, HarperCollins, Hachette, and Scholastic) as well as top university presses (Cambridge, Chicago, Princeton, Columbia, California, NYU, Michigan, Stanford) and K-12 and postsecondary publishers. They send us their new releases and books on just about every subject you can imagine, including books that fill a specialty niche (like…

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Western Suffolk NY BOCES’ Teacher Shares Student Outcomes

Maria Aranguren, Teacher of the Blind and Visually Impaired sent us this wonderful letter. One of the biggest challenges facing students with visual impairments and their teachers continues to be the ability to access print instructional materials in alternate formats.  Bookshare has done a tremendous job of addressing this issue and I wanted to share some of our student outcomes with you. This year our total number of registered members for Western Suffolk Boces has grown to 62 students and 23 sponsors.  For the first two months of the 2010-2011 school year, our members and sponsors have downloaded 22 novels,…

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What We’re Reading {November 24 2010}

Dogs. You asked for books that feature guide dogs, dogs who are man’s best friend, loveable dogs, silly dogs, mischievous dogs…everything dogs. So, this week I give you…dogs!  I’ve focused this collection on books for all ages. Enjoy these great books, and be sure to comment and let us know what other great dog books are out there. Happy reading! The Curious Incident of the Dog in the Night-Time by Mark Haddon — Christopher John Francis Boone knows all the countries of the world and their capitals and every prime number up to 7,057. He relates well to animals but has…

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