University Partners

By Cherie Miller

In 2003, Indiana University shared over 500 scanned books with Bookshare and created the first Bookshare university partnership. Since then, other colleges and universities have followed suit, contributing over 1,000 books for use by post-secondary students worldwide.

Today, Ohio State University, Michigan State University, University of Idaho, University of Montana and De Anza Community College have joined Indiana University as founding University Partners. These partners contributed books scanned on their campuses to Bookshare to expand the collection of accessible college textbooks for students with print disabilities, and eliminate the need for each campus to scan its own books.

Across the country, most college campuses have local textbook scanning and conversion programs to provide accessible books to students on that one campus. Bookshare urges campuses to "scan once, and share man."

Bookshare’s University Partner program is now strengthening its relationships with the university community. In addition to sharing books, Bookshare will communicate closely with partner universities about topics related to improving the availability of accessible books for post-secondary students. With over 44,900 books in the Bookshare collection, qualified post-secondary students now have a large library of accessible books for research, pleasure reading, catching up on the news, as well as for school work. Over the coming years, Bookshare will continually expand the collection to ensure that all students with print disabilities can find the books they need.

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