Bookshare is an online library of accessible

ebooks An ebook (short for electronic book), also known as an e-book or eBook, is a book publication made available in digital form, consisting of text, images, or both, readable on the flat-panel display of computers or other electronic devices. Alt ...

for people with

print disabilities A print-disabled person is "a person who cannot effectively read print because of a visual, physical, perceptual, developmental, cognitive, or learning disability". A print disability prevents a person from gaining information from printed material ...

, such as

visual impairment Visual impairment, also known as vision impairment, is a medical definition primarily measured based on an individual's better eye visual acuity; in the absence of treatment such as correctable eyewear, assistive devices, and medical treatment� ...

, severe

dyslexia Dyslexia, also known until the 1960s as word blindness, is a disorder characterized by reading below the expected level for one's age. Different people are affected to different degrees. Problems may include difficulties in spelling words, r ...

, and

cerebral palsy Cerebral palsy (CP) is a group of movement disorders that appear in early childhood. Signs and symptoms vary among people and over time, but include poor coordination, stiff muscles, weak muscles, and tremors. There may be problems with sensa ...

. An initiative of

Benetech Benetech is a nonprofit social enterprise organization that empowers communities with software for social good. Previous projects include the Route 66 Literacy Project, the Miradi environmental project management software, Martus (human rights ab ...

, a

social enterprise A social enterprise is an organization that applies commercial strategies to maximize improvements in financial, social and environmental well-being. This may include maximizing social impact alongside profits for co-owners. Social enterprises ca ...

organization based in

Palo Alto, California Palo Alto (; Spanish language, Spanish for "tall stick") is a charter city in the northwestern corner of Santa Clara County, California, United States, in the San Francisco Bay Area, named after a Sequoia sempervirens, coastal redwood tree kno ...

, it was founded in 2001 by

Jim Fruchterman Jim Fruchterman is an engineer and social entrepreneur. He was the founder and longtime CEO of Benetech, a Silicon Valley nonprofit technology company that develops software applications to address unmet needs of users in the social sector. He is ...

. Bookshare provides books in DAISY,

EPUB EPUB is an e-book file format that uses the ".epub" file extension. The term is short for ''electronic publication'' and is sometimes styled ''ePub''. EPUB is supported by many e-readers, and compatible software is available for most smartphones ...

, BRF (Braille refreshable format), MP3, and Microsoft Word document formats. Books have been contributed by volunteers, authors, libraries, universities, and publishers. By 2010 more than half of books had been contributed by publishers and by 2020 more than 900 publishers had partnered with Bookshare, contributing to its library of more than 900,000 books. Since 2007, Bookshare has received awards from the

U.S. Department of Education The United States Department of Education is a Cabinet-level department of the United States government. It began operating on May 4, 1980, having been created after the Department of Health, Education, and Welfare was split into the Department ...

Office of Special Education Programs Originally created as the Bureau of the Education of the Handicapped, the Office of Special Education Programs (OSEP) is part of the U.S. Department of Education. OSEP provides leadership and support for professionals working with children with d ...

(OSEP), to provide free access for all U.S. students with a qualifying print disability, with the five-year allocation from 2017 to 2022 totaling $42.5 million. Similar programs have been set up in the United Kingdom and Ireland. Bookshare also partners with libraries and blindness organizations around the world.

References

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External links

Bookshare
American digital libraries Blindness Dyslexia Accessible information