John Wiley & Sons, Inc., Signs Agreement to Provide Titles to Bookshare

Partnership Expands Bookshare Collection and Makes it Easier for People with Print Disabilities to Gain Access to a Wide Range of Titles

FOR IMMEDIATE RELEASE

Bookshare Media Contact:
Valerie Chernek
410-960-4060
valerie.c@bookshare.org

Wiley Media Contact:
Sarah White
201-748-5628
swhite@wiley.com

April 14, 2011, Palo Alto, CA —John Wiley & Sons, Inc. (JWa, JWb), a leading publisher serving the professional, consumer, scientific, technical, medical and academic communities worldwide, has agreed to provide Bookshare with digital files of professional and trade titles for their collection. This agreement will broaden the access of people with disabilities to Wiley content.

“Wiley strongly believes in supporting people with disabilities. Our commitment to Bookshare is an extension of our longtime commitment to provide Wiley content to all interested readers in whatever format best serves their needs,” said Susan Spilka, Vice President, Corporate Communications, John Wiley & Sons, Inc.

“We’re very pleased to add such popular and useful books to Bookshare,” said Betsy Beaumon, Vice President and General Manager of the Literacy Program at Benetech, the nonprofit organization that operates Bookshare. ”Working directly with Wiley, we are expanding our collection of accessible titles and continuing to knock down barriers to access, ensuring that people with print disabilities have the same breadth and depth of titles to choose from as people without print disabilities.”

As a result of the agreement, Bookshare will provide access to a selection of Wiley titles targeting professionals and general consumers, covering a variety of subjects, published under its For Dummies, Frommer's, Webster's New World, Jossey-Bass, Pfeiffer, Cliffs Notes, Wrox, J.K. Lasser, Sybex, Fisher Investments Press, and Bloomberg Press brands.

Through an exemption in the U.S. copyright law (17 U.S.C. § 121), known as the Chafee Amendment, Bookshare serves a community of individuals with qualified print disabilities, such as visual impairments, physical disabilities or severe learning disabilities that affect reading. Proof of disability is required for membership. The library offers over 100,000 books, including K-12 textbooks, postsecondary textbooks, teacher-recommended reading, literature, children’s books, reference works and newspapers and magazines. Members can download books in the latest DAISY (Digital Accessible Information System) and BRF (Braille Ready Format) file formats.

For access to the collection, qualified individuals of all ages, as well as qualifying organizations, are welcome to sign up for a membership.

Publishers interested in contributing digital files to Bookshare to provide timely access for individuals with print disabilities should contact Robin Seaman, Publisher Liaison. For a list of publishing partners, please visit the Bookshare website.

About Wiley

Founded in 1807, John Wiley & Sons, Inc. has been a valued source of information and understanding for more than 200 years, helping people around the world meet their needs and fulfill their aspirations. Wiley and its acquired companies have published the works of more than 450 Nobel laureates in all categories: Literature, Economics, Physiology or Medicine, Physics, Chemistry, and Peace. Wiley's global headquarters are located in Hoboken, New Jersey, with operations in the U.S., Europe, Asia, Canada, and Australia. The Company's Web site can be accessed at http://www.wiley.com. The Company is listed on the New York Stock Exchange under the symbols JWa and JWb.

About Bookshare

Bookshare is the world’s largest online accessible library of copyrighted content for people with print disabilities. Through its technology initiatives and partnerships, Bookshare seeks to raise the floor on accessibility issues so that individuals with print disabilities have the same ease of access to print materials as people without disabilities. In 2007, Bookshare received a five-year award from the U.S. Department of Education, Office of Special Education Programs (OSEP), to provide free access for all U.S. students with a qualifying print disability. The Bookshare library now has over 100,000 books and serves more than 130,000 members. Bookshare is an initiative of Benetech, a Palo Alto, CA-based nonprofit which creates sustainable technology to solve pressing social needs.

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The content of this press release was developed under a cooperative agreement, H327K070001, with the U.S. Department of Education, Office of Special Education Programs. However, those contents do not necessarily represent the policy of the U.S. Department of Education, and you should not assume endorsement by the Federal Government.

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