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Bookshare® is a web-based digital library that gives people with print disabilities the same ease of access to books and periodicals enjoyed by those without disabilities. In the United States alone, there are more than 10 million people who have a disability that prevents them from reading a traditional printed book. Bookshare allows a book to be scanned once and then shared in digital formats that are easy to download, search and navigate.
The Bookshare library provides people with print disabilities in the United States legal access to more than 50,000 books and 150 periodicals that can be converted to Braille, large print or synthetic speech. Originally created by a community of volunteers, Bookshare is a subscription-based service operated by Benetech®. Many of the titles in the Bookshare collection are available to people living outside the U.S. including books in Spanish.
The Bookshare Concept Is Simple
- A provision in U.S. copyright law allows Bookshare to make copyrighted digital books legally available to people with bona fide disabilities
- A community of volunteers and Bookshare staff scan, upload and proofread books to build the library
- Bookshare members pay a $25 set-up fee and a $50 annual subscription
- Bookshare is free to qualified U.S. students regardless of age to access unlimited books and periodicals in the collection
- The Bookshare Digital Rights Management system ensures that the copyrighted books are available only to qualified people with disabilities and stay within this community
The Bookshare Collection
Bookshare member Tyler Norwood, who has a learning disability, uses text-to-speech software to read books from the Bookshare library.
Bookshare texts and periodicals are organized in collections by subject
area, just as they would be in a physical library.
Members can search by title, author and subject. The virtual bookshelves
at Bookshare feature a wide assortment of reading material including
a broad collection of children’s literature, titles from the Oprah
Book Club booklist, and an array of textbooks. Bookshare staff and volunteers
take pride in making sure that the library includes bestsellers such
as the Harry Potter books which become available on Bookshare just hours
after they are released to the public. If a particular book is not yet
available in the Bookshare library, Members can submit the title to
a wish list for Volunteers to scan and upload to the library.
According to teachers, the textbooks offered by Bookshare help students with print disabilities keep up with their classmates. High-quality digital books in accessible formats also encourage students to study independently and develop their tastes in recreational reading outside the classroom. Bookshare’s digital texts allow readers with print disabilities to easily navigate to specific pages or search for keywords, making them much more usable than books on tape.
Bookshare Member Saleena Cerrillo has free access to Bookshare thanks to the Office of Special Education Programs (OSEP).
Bookshare works with state education agencies and schools to get digital books to students in a timely manner. The library also partners with authors and publishers who contribute digital content with global permissions to make books available to print disabled readers worldwide. These partnerships allow Bookshare to deliver the best quality content possible at the lowest cost. The Bookshare library also makes extensive use of textbook files provided by publishers using the National Instructional Materials Accessibility Standard (NIMAS), to create high quality student-ready materials in digital audio, large print or Braille.
In addition to texts, the Bookshare website offers free assistive technology software that Members can use to read digital texts in a range of formats. Benetech advises the National Instructional Materials Accessibility Standard (NIMAS) advisory committee which develops etext standards for K-12 textbooks. The company also works closely with assistive technology vendors and leading technology firms such as Amazon and Google to make books more accessible.
Free Membership For Students
In 2007, the Office of Special Education Programs (OSEP) at the U.S. Department of Education awarded the Bookshare project $32 million over five years to expand the availability of accessible electronic books and the software for reading those books. This funding gives all qualified disabled students in the U.S., regardless of age, access to the library without charge. Students can download and read as many books as they wish from Bookshare on their home computers. Funding from OSEP will allow Bookshare to add more than 100,000 new educational books to the Bookshare collection in the next several years.
Bookshare Continues To Grow
Bookshare student member Alex Clark, who has a learning disability, uses synthetic speech software to read books from the Bookshare library.
In 2008, Bookshare completely rebuilt its online library of accessible books and expanded its collection of textbooks. The new Bookshare library offers Members significantly improved accessibility to digital texts and ease of use. New features include enhanced navigation, refined membership management and account sign-up tools, and more powerful search functions for books in the collection. Enhanced services for the Bookshare volunteer community makes it even easier for Volunteers to submit and proofread books.
The Bookshare library has made a dramatic impact in the lives of people with print disabilities. Bookshare Members can now participate in everyday activities that many people take for granted such as reading a daily newspaper, keeping up with assigned reading in the classroom or enjoying the latest bestselling novel. Bookshare currently has more than 40,000 members and is rapidly increasing the number of schools and students who depend on the library for accessible books and periodicals. You can view or listen to a profile of Bookshare student member Alex Clark who talks about how Bookshare helped him improve his grades and introduced him to a world of books about sports.
Bookshare for Education (B4E) presentation Jim Fruchterman and Lisa Friendly to the Office of Special Education Programs at the U.S. Department of Education, which awarded Benetech $32 million to provide Bookshare to every student with a print disability in the United States.
Problem: Less than 5% of all published books, including textbooks, popular novels, magazines and daily newspapers, are available in formats that are accessible to people with visual or reading disabilities.
Solution: Bookshare is making a growing number of books and newspapers available online for easy, instant, independent access to those people with print disabilities.
Bookshare has already demonstrated tremendous success:
- Our average user downloads 76 titles per year (vs. less than two for other accessible content providers).
- Trade books include best sellers, literature, series and collections.
- California adopted textbooks for grades 6-8 are now available. More than 500 post-secondary scanned textbooks used nation-wide.
- Production costs as low as $6 for novels and $50 for proofread textbooks makes Bookshare content very inexpensive to produce and distribute.
- Staff and volunteers using high-speed scanners can make new books available on Bookshare within a few hours. More than 200 active volunteers scan and proofread new books, evaluate new member submissions and organize new offerings.
- Books are produced in formats that are flexible enough to work in any way a print disabled user needs and prefers.
- Bookshare’s partners in the publishing industry directly deliver newly published books, providing equal access for people with disabilities.
- Bookshare currently has over 1,100 books in Spanish, and we are purposely growing our ability to provide books in languages other than English.
- Dozens of periodicals are available on Bookshare in etext through an agreement with the NFB-Newsline® service run by the National Federation of the Blind.
Visit the Bookshare website to learn more.
