Support

Help Finding and Reading Books

How can I use these books?

You have many different options for reading the books from Bookshare.org, including:

1. Read on a computer:

Victor Reader Soft DAISY Reader

Using the Victor Reader Soft DAISY reader that is provided with membership, the DAISY format books can be opened in a viewer that is similar to a web browser, but with navigation and bookmarking capability. You can go right to the page that you want, or bookmark passages to return to later. The text is displayed on the screen, so it can be read with the adaptive features of the Victor Reader Soft. A low vision person can use screen-enlarging software to read the material.

In combination with screen reader software such as JAWS or Window-Eyes, the book can be listened to with Text to Speech, in a synthetic voice. With a screen reader the text is also still displayed on the screen for people who need to both see the text and listen to it. The color and font size of the text can be changed, as well as the background color.

Scanning and Reading Software

Using one of the scanning and/or reading software packages (such as OpenBook, WYNN, Kurzweil 1000 or Kurzweil 3000), the DAISY or the BRF files can be opened directly, depending on the version of the software. WYNN and Kurzweil 3000 are especially helpful for people with learning disabilities.

2. Read on a portable headphone or Braille device:

A headphone device such as the Road Runner (which has now been discontinued, but many people still use), can be loaded with books. Depending on the device, the book may need to be saved in a different format. For example, for the Road Runner, the book needs to be saved in Text format. Read more information about the Road Runner. Some programs now also enable files to saved as MP3s so they can be listened to with any portable MP3 device. Find out more about saving as MP3 files.

Using a portable Braille device such as a Braille 'n' Speak or BrailleNote, the grade 2 Braille format (BRF) files can be read in refreshable Braille.

Note: To meet the accessibility needs of an individual Bookshare.org member, the member is allowed to save the files in a different format. The resulting files are for that member's use only and may not be shared with others.

3. Read as embossed Braille:

With a Braille embosser, hard copy Braille books can be created from the grade 2 Braille format (BRF) file.

Searching for Books

You can search for books in different ways on the Bookshare.org site: New, by Category, by Author, or by Title.

The New Books search will display most recent 100 additions to the collection. This is a great place to start if you haven't been on the site for a while, or you want to keep a lookout for any new best-sellers that have been scanned.

Search by Category will enable you to pull up a list of all books within the category of your choice. Just choose from the list of categories.

Search by Author will help find books if you know the Author's last name. It is always best to search just by the last name. If you enter a first and last name and the author has a middle initial, the author will not be found. Alternatively, you can view a list of all authors whose last names start with a letter of the alphabet.

Search by Title can locate books if you know a word or two of the title. It is usually best to keep the search string short. "Tom Sawyer" will find "The Adventures of Tom Sawyer", but "Adventures Tom Sawyer" will fail. Not having the word "of" confuses the search engine.

Some search results may include listings for books that are not a part of Bookshare.org's online collection, but instead are available from other providers. We call these listings "Remote Books". These Remote Books will be clearly indicated in the book information, and will include a link to the book provider's web site for information on ordering or otherwise procuring the book. These providers may have different requirements and fees that will be outlined on their web sites. We offer these listings as an additional resource, to help users searching Bookshare.org find out about other options for accessing books they are looking for.

Downloading Books

When I try to download something from Bookshare.org, even the Unpack tool, it doesn't seem to work. I get a saved copy of the web page or nothing at all. What's wrong?

There is a known problem in Internet Explorer which may occur on your system. The problem is that opening a file directly from a web site doesn't always work. If you experience this problem, first save the file to your hard drive, and then open it from your hard drive.

Internet Explorer will present you with a dialog box that offers a choice of opening the file or saving it. Select save the file and on the following screen, enter a folder name where you would like to put it. If you aren't sure where to save it, you can always save a file to your Desktop where it will be easy to find.

Netscape 4.7 and 6 users that have the program AdSubtract (www.adsubtract.com) installed will have a problem with our downloads getting corrupted. The solution is to add Bookshare.org to the proxy exceptions list in Netscape. To do this, open Netscape, open the Edit menu, select Preferences, double click Advanced, select Proxies, and enter Bookshare.org into the field labeled "No Proxy For".

Reading Books

I have a Braille Note from HumanWare and loading Bookshare.org files into it seems to take a long time. What is the problem?

Check with HumanWare to be sure you have the latest version of the Braille Note firmware. Some older versions open large Braille files slowly.

I use the Kurzweil 1000. How can I open the Bookshare.org books?

Users of the Kurzweil 1000 version 4.0 or above can open and read the digital grade 2 Braille files (BRF format) downloaded from Bookshare.org. Version 6.01 or above can open the DAISY format books from Bookshare.org. Using the standard features of the product, books can be read aloud and navigated in a variety of accessible ways including skimming, summarization, and bookmarks. Full navigation of the DAISY format is not yet supported. Also, book files from Bookshare.org, as with any text read by the Kurzweil 1000, can be saved in MP3 audio format. This gives Bookshare.org and Kurzweil users the option of listening to the books on convenient, portable MP3 players.

Version 7.0 of the Kurzweil 1000 has a new feature that enables users with an Internet connection to search for, download, open and read the Bookshare.org books without leaving the Kurzweil 1000. The product will ask Bookshare.org subscribing members to log in before being able to access copyrighted books, and will ask for their website password before opening the books into the K1000.

Users who purchase the Kurzweil 1000 or an upgrade, are U.S. residents, and qualify for Bookshare.org membership will be able to take advantage of a free 30-day trial to Bookshare.org they receive with their purchase. This will enable them to experience using the new search and download feature of the K1000.

I use the Kurzweil 3000. How can I open the Bookshare.org books?

If you are running version 6.0 or above, you can open DAISY books using your K3000. You can use the standard features of the product to read and navigate, but the K3000 does not support full DAISY navigation.

I use OpenBook from Freedom Scientific. How can I open the Bookshare.org books?

Users of OpenBook version 6.0 or above can open and read the digital grade 2 Braille files (BRF format) as well as DAISY format books downloaded from Bookshare.org. Using the standard features of the product, books can be read and navigated. DAISY format books automatically honor the pages of the DAISY format, and enable you to navigate by page. Also, book files can be saved in MP3 audio formats to give Bookshare.org users the option of listening to the books in portable headphone MP3 players, offering increased portability.

Any of the books you can read in OpenBook can be sent to an embosser directly from the program. OpenBook's file exchange with portable notetakers enables you to transfer files to your notetaker and carry them with you.

Starting with Version 6.0, Connect Outloud Web Access software is included as an optional install for Braille and speech access to the operating system, and to Internet Explorer and Outlook Express, Adobe Acrobat Reader, MP3 Player, and the Bookshare.org Unpack Tool that decrypts the books with your website password after download. OpenBook combined with Connect Outloud could serve Bookshare.org members as a stand-alone solution for web surfing, book downloading, and book reading.

I have a Road Runner from Ostrich Software. How can I use it to read files I obtain from Bookshare.org?

The Road Runner requires that files be in plain ASCII text format before its software will permit you to upload content to it. It is additionally essential that the file name have the standard TXT extension as part of its file name. The Road Runner will allow you to load several files (up to 3 megabytes) at once. Prepare each Bookshare.org file so that it is in plain text format with the TXT extension. Read tips on how to do this. It will be easiest if you put each of these in the same folder. Next, run the Road Runner Uplink utility with the Road Runner connected to your serial port via the communications cable supplied with it. After this, select the option to create a New Navigation Tree. Use the Add command to add as many of the TXT files as you like to the tree. The Road Runner software will warn you when you are approaching the memory limit of your device. Finally, use the Download function to transfer your books onto the Road Runner. Please see the instructions that came with your Road Runner to get more detailed information about using the Uplink software. Please note that Ostrich Software is no longer in business.

I use WYNN from Freedom Scientific. How can I open the Bookshare.org books?

If you have WYNN Wizard 3.0 or WYNN Reader 3.0 or later, you can download the DAISY format of any book and open it in WYNN. You will need to have the Unpack Tool installed before downloading your first book. The Bookshare.org Unpack Tool can be downloaded from the Bookshare.org website by visiting the Download Tools link in the navigation area on any page. Detailed step-by-step instructions for WYNN users are available by visiting the WYNN instructions page.

I use a text reading device or application that requires that the files be in plain ASCII text. How can I make use of the DAISY or Braille files?

All public domain books are available for download in plain text and HTML formats in addition to the specialized format (DAISY and BRF). If you use a device such as the Road Runner from Ostrich Software that requires books to be in ASCII text format, you can convert either the grade 2 Braille files (BRF format) or the DAISY files into plain text format. Before making this conversion, remember that under the terms of your Membership Agreement with Bookshare.org, you may under no circumstances share the books you download from Bookshare.org with another person. Changing the format for your own use is allowed. In addition, our fingerprinting and watermarking technology, used to identify the source of a digital book, remain in place even if a file is converted to plain text.

A Braille file (BRF format) can be converted to ASCII text using the back-translation feature of the free NFB Trans software, Duxbury Braille Translator, Megadots and other similar products.

Scanning and reading software programs like OpenBook and WYNN from Freedom Scientific or the Kurzweil 1000 and Kurzweil 3000 can open Braille or DAISY files directly, depending on the product. From within these programs you can resave the text in another format such as ASCII text. Please contact the manufacturer directly to find out more about their software.

Finally, if you are comfortable working with Windows files, you can use your web browser (such as Internet Explorer) to open the XML file of the DAISY book by renaming it with an HTML extention, and then use the Save As feature to save as text. First, using Windows Explorer, locate the DAISY book file with the .XML extension. Change the file extention to .HTML by renaming the file. Now the book will load in your web browser. Use the File Save As command and choose to Save as Type: Text File. Please note that if you convert a DAISY format book in this manner for use with a device that requires text format, you will lose the great navigation capability that is one of the benefits of the NISO/DAISY standard.

I've heard that the DAISY format book contain actual recorded human speech, but books from Bookshare.org don't seem to have it.

The DAISY format is extremely flexible in that it permits the incorporation of both recorded human speech and electronic text into a single file package. It is possible through the DAISY standard to synchronize the two types of text for simultaneous listening and study. The Bookshare.org books contain only the text portion of the books. It is our goal to make as many books as possible as quickly as possible, primarily contributed by members and volunteers who scan the book to prepare it for Bookshare.org. As a result, the files are text only. Keep in mind that a DAISY book with recorded audio would occupy up to several hundred megabytes of disk space which would make downloading impractical for most individuals.

How can I read a Bookshare.org book using my MP3 player?

The Bookshare.org books can be downloaded in text-only formats and do not contain a recorded audio file. As such, they can be listened to using text to speech (for example, with the Victor Reader Soft DAISY reader in combination with a screen reader).

There are currently a few applications on the market that will use synthetic text to speech to create an MP3 audio file. OpenBook 6.0 and Kurzweil 1000, Version 6.02 are examples of such an application. The computer essentially reads the text file in a synthetic voice into an audio format. The resulting MP3 file is a recording of your computer's speech which may be uploaded into an audio MP3 device.

Submitting Books

I'm having difficulty using my computer to scan books. Can you help?

We have put together a set of recommendations about scanner settings to guide you if you are scanning new books for Bookshare.org. For problems with your scanner itself, we recommend contacting your scanner manufacturer directly.

Find out more information about submitting books, including what types of books are acceptable for submission. When scanning new books, make sure to include a scan of the copyright information.

When I try to submit a book, my screen reader does not indicate how to upload the book file.

If you are using Netscape 4.x (any version of Netscape 4), your screen reader may not read buttons. To upload a book, there is a button to browse for the book file. If this button is not read and you are using a version of Netscape 4, the problem should be fixed by upgrading your Netscape software to a more recent version. Visit www.netscape.com to install the upgrade.

If your question is not answered here, please send an email to support@bookshare.org. We'll get back to you within one business day.

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