News about Bookshare: an ebook library for people with reading barriers
Do you have students with reading barriers like dyslexia, low vision, or cerebral palsy? Are you looking for books in alternate formats like audio, large print, or braille? Join us for a free webinar on resources for students with dyslexia or visual or physical disabilities who need reading accommodations.
Leave a CommentBooks get added to the Bookshare collection two ways. Ninety percent come directly in a digital feed from our 850 publisher partners. The remainder are added by request through a manual chop/scan/proof process.
1 CommentGeorgia Libraries for Accessible Statewide Services (GLASS) offers free Bookshare memberships with access to 730,000 books for eligible patrons with disabilities.
Leave a CommentMoses Chowdari Gorrepati, Program Manager at EnAble India, explains how accessible ebooks from Bookshare helped him achieve employment and independence.
Leave a CommentThe proliferation and improved quality of text-to-speech is helping people with reading barriers succeed in school and life .
9 CommentsAt the end of 2017, I shared Bookshare by the Numbers. Since then, our collection and membership has continued to grow and reach new milestones. We have added over 100,000 more members and delivered 2,000,000 more books. We’ve expanded to new countries and added new publisher partners, allowing Bookshare to reach more people with more books than ever before. These numbers show the scale at which software can be used to build a more inclusive future, in this case by providing people with reading barriers with a means to read and access information in ways that work for them. To…
Leave a CommentWe invite you to donate to Bookshare’s annual book drive This holiday season, give the gift of books to emerging readers. Bookshare is running an end-of-year book drive, and you can help bring high-demand books to students with reading barriers. Bookshare adds thousands of new titles to the library every month, providing access to more books in easy-to-read ebook formats for students with dyslexia, blindness, low vision, cerebral palsy, and other reading barriers. Our library currently has over 675,000 titles! Yet, this is still a fraction of the one million new books published every year. Members request new books, and we…
Leave a CommentThese resources from a recent webinar help educators add students, assign books, and find reading tools so students can start school strong. What do you do if you have students with reading barriers like dyslexia and printed text doesn’t work for them? On September 5, Bookshare held a webinar for educators that answered that question: Beginning the School Year with Bookshare. If you missed it, here are the valuable resources: View the webinar recording on YouTube Download the webinar slides (PDF) Read the answers to attendees’ questions below How do you see if a particular textbook is available? You can…
Leave a CommentBy Jim Fruchterman, CEO, Benetech We stand on the threshold of ending the global book famine for people who read differently due to blindness, low vision, dyslexia, or a physical disability that interferes with reading. A bill to ratify and implement the Marrakesh Treaty was just introduced in the United States Senate by the chairs and ranking members of the Foreign Relations and Judiciary Committees. This bipartisan bill makes it possible for organizations such as Benetech to create accessible versions of books for all types of readers and to share them across borders through a copyright exception. As a result,…
1 CommentChildren need and deserve books that reflect themselves and the diversity of the world around them. In addition to people of color, people with disabilities are underrepresented in the popular media. For many children and teens with disabilities, it is difficult to find books with accurate portrayals of disabilities. With this gap in mind, Bookshare has assembled four new collections that feature characters with learning disabilities and visual impairments, because everyone has differences and abilities and representation matters. Books that Feature Characters with Learning Disabilities The novels in these two collections feature characters with a learning disability, such as dyslexia,…
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