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Bookshare.org for Education
Delivering Accessible Books for Every
Print Disabled Student in the United States
Presentation to the Office of Special Education
Programs at the U.S.
Department of Education
by Jim Fruchterman & Lisa Friendly
November, 2007
Bookshare.org Today
The Bookshare.org Solution
An online library of accessible digital text
- Accessible books as digital text over the Internet
- Not human narrated audio
- Books similar to a web page or word processing file
- Users access the books by:
- Listening to them (voice synthesizer)
- Viewing them enlarged (on a PC screen or printed out)
- Seeing and hearing the words at the same time
- Reading Braille (digital or hardcopy)
Bookshare.org Advantages
Completely online
- Much lower costs than traditional approaches
- $50 each to add most books to our collection
- Pennies incremental cost for each book downloaded
- Speed of access
- New books in under a week into the collection
- Search the entire collection in seconds
- Get the book two minutes after you decide you want it
- Library available 24/7
- Flexibility
- Braille for the Braille reader
- Large print for the low vision reader
- Bi-modal reading for the dyslexic reader
Types of publications available
- Trade books
- Majority of top titles available
- New York Times Best sellers, series, collections
- Newbery awards, recommended student reading lists
- 1,000 Spanish language titles
- Children's books
- New Scholastic partnership (focus on chapter books)
- Textbooks
- Growing number available from schools & publishers
- Periodicals
- Available through our partnership with NFB Newsline
- 150 national & regional newspapers and magazines
How is sharing copyrighted books legal?
Through an exemption in the U.S. copyright law
- Key requirements of the Chafee Amendment
- Authorized entity (Government or nonprofit)
- Copyright notice
- Specialized formats (Braille, audio or digital text)
- Proof of print disability
- U.S. residents only unless permission granted
- Bookshare.org increasingly receives permissions from publishers and authors to provide accessible books globally on equivalent terms
Definition of print disability
People who cannot read a print book
- Visually impaired
- Blind or legally blind
- Learning disabled
- Typically a student with a specific language learning impairment and IEP requiring text accommodation
- Physically disabled
- Cannot hold a book and turn pages
- Need to have a qualified professional sign a Section 121 certification (or an agency staffer certify that such a certification is on file)
Who is Benetech?
An authorized Chafee entity
- 18 year old, 501(c)(3) nonprofit
- U.S. charity status, active globally
- Silicon Valley's leading nonprofit tech developer
- Literacy, human rights, environment
- Respected leadership
- MacArthur, Skoll, Schwab Fellowships
- Two AFB Access Awards
- Section 508 and 255 federal advisory committees
- American Library Association Francis Joseph Campbell Award
- National Instructional Materials Accessibility Standard federal committee
Reading the Books
Go to Bookshare.org and Search
Like Amazon.com for the print disabled
- Search for the book needed
- Download an encrypted copy to a PC
- Use the preferred assistive technology for the person with a disability
- Braille
- Synthetic Speech
- Enlargement
- Combination
BRF format
Easy-to-use grade 2 digital Braille
- Download Braille files directly from the site
- Use notetakers or refreshable Braille displays
- Typical Braille notetaker has 20 Braille cells with plastic pins that pop up and provide 20 characters at a time
- Download books to embosser
- Embossing available through partnership with Braille Institute
- Creating hardcopy Braille books
- Digital Braille is the key to the future of Braille
- An entire library on a flash card
DAISY format
Digital Accessible Information SYstem
- Books are read on a computer using synthetic speech and are visually presented
- NISO/DAISY 3.0 XML specification enables text-based navigation
- Includes page numbers and paragraphs
- Think of it as a web page (HTML) plus a couple of extra tags
- The audio version of the books can be played on an MP3 player (just like listening to music)
Bookshare.org Tomorrow - Bookshare.org for Education (B4E)
Bookshare.org for Education
Every student, 100,000 new books
- Our goal is to realize the promise of IDEA
- The books students need, in high quality, at the same time as their peers, for free
- Freedom to read, freedom to do research in a library
- Existing Bookshare.org collection free to all schools, all students as of October 1, 2007
- We turned this on over a weekend!
- Only possible because we're completely digital
- Greatly expanded textbook work
- Free assistive technology
- Goal is to share the access burden better across all SEAs, LEAs, teachers, parents and students Bookshare.org
Textbooks
High quality, flexible textbooks, fast
- One week turnaround for NIMAS files in 2008
- Student-ready files in 7 days
- Images added in 2008
- Helps low vision and dyslexic students
- Helpful for blind students when augmenting with readers
- Text descriptions of images in 2009
- Focus on needed textbooks not currently available in the needed formats
Partnerships
Engagement with Publishers
- Presented Bookshare.org to the copyright committee of the AAP one year before launch
- Seven point DRM plan
- Changes and feedback
- Regular reviews with AAP general counsel
- Agreement with author association (SFWA)
- Author moral rights
- Agreement to promote access
- Textbook Access
- NIMAS/NIMAC work
Publisher Partnerships
- The visionary publishers are already on board
- Baen
- Scholastic
- HarperCollins
- O'Reilly
- Recruiting others
- Help all publishers understand the value of Provide Once, Comply Everywhere (Bookshare.org will supply schools with e-text at no cost to publishers)
Permissions Drive
- Direct access to digital content
- Better quality
- Avoids rescanning
- International access
- Meet the reading needs of English speaking disabled people
- Plan to extend to other languages in 2008
- Lex Mundi Pro Bono Foundation support
- Help publishers meet accessibility obligations
Security for Bookshare.org
Seven Point Digital Rights Plan
- Qualified users
- Contractual Agreement
- Copyright notice
- Encryption
- Watermark / Fingerprint
- Security database
- Security watch program
School Partnerships
- Scan once, share many, save time
- Invest the extra effort into more titles, more proofreading
- Colleges and SEAs/LEAs contributing high quality scanned books: Michigan State, Montana, Indiana, CUNY and their consortium partners, Hadley School, etc.
- Documentation and training to improve quality
Assistive Technology Partnerships
- Every vendor who provides text access products has or is working on Bookshare.org support
- We fill up those products and devices with text with the least effort
- HumanWare Victor Reader included today
- Plus, a commitment to frequent improvements
- Working on additional partnerships for free AT
- Especially software designed for dyslexic users
- Longer-term goals
- The student without a PC can do their reading on a locked-down public access terminal
- Support the student who has a $20 MP3 player or $50 cell phone
Conclusion
- 35,000+ books and expanding: critical mass
- Textbooks growingfast
- Meets critical social need
- Print disabled people have access they need
- Provides a national opportunity for volunteer service
- Primary objective: support educational outcomes
- Textbooks
- Recommended reading
- Research and reference
Find out More
- Bookshare.org
- www.bookshare.org
- Jim Fruchterman
president@benetech.org
650-644-3400- Lisa Friendly
Lisa.F@benetech.org 650-644-3420- A project of Benetech
- www.benetech.org
- Silicon Valley's deliberately nonprofit tech company
