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Information for Schools Bookshare.org is a valuable resource for students with special needs, by providing access to a large online library of accessible digital books. For students and teachers who are already scanning books, Bookshare.org offers a way to reduce duplication of effort across the entire field of book access. Bookshare.org is a valuable and cost-effective part of a book access solution for almost all students with print disabilities. By combining the efforts of many publishers, authors, teachers, schools, parents and people with disabilities, we have created an new way of obtaining high quality educations materials, as well as general reading titles. A growing number of magazines and newspapers are being made available in addition to books. Schools can sponsor and manage individual subscriptions for their students through the Sponsored Subscription option, or schools can download books to deliver directly to qualified students through Institutional Access. Schools can also order embossed Braille copies of books from the collection. Follow these links to find out more about:
Answers to some commonly asked questions about schools' and students' use of Bookshare.org are included below. What types of books that students will want to read can be found on Bookshare.org? Bookshare.org has a huge number of trade books, which are essential for classes. We are especially strong in books for English, History, or other courses in the humanities and social sciences, and are starting to add more and more technical and scientific books thanks to partnerships with publishers. Access to the great variety of books from Bookshare.org can encourage outside reading of interest to the student, supporting increased general literacy. Bookshare.org works with teachers and administrators to identify books for addition to the collection. To view a list of books recommended by K-12 teachers that have already been added to Bookshare.org, visit our Teacher Recommended reading list. We are committed to delivering high quality educational materials to students and educational agencies. We are especially excited about the new NIMAS standard, where K-12 publishers are required to provide the very highest quality versions of their educational materials. Bookshare.org has automated tools for converting these files into student-ready ebooks. Publishers and authors have provided many high quality electronic versions of selected textbooks (and other books) to Bookshare.org. We greatly appreciate their support and encourage you to mention Bookshare.org to publishers as a solution to accessible book needs. Will Bookshare.org replace textbooks from services such as Recording for the Blind & Dyslexic (RFB&D)? No, we consider Bookshare.org to be a valuable provider of content that increases the choices available to students. The existing providers of accessible textbooks, such as RFB&D focus on providing human narrated audio, while we concentrate on digital text based on the NIMAS and DAISY formats. Our books can easily be converted into Braille, large print and digital audio using synthetic speech. It is a priority to Bookshare.org to not duplicate work that is already available. For example, we would prioritize the acquisition of textbooks that are not available from other suppliers in the student’s desired format (i.e., Braille). Which students qualify for Bookshare.org? If the students qualify for RFB&D or National Library Services for the Blind and Physically Handicapped (NLS), and reside in the U.S., they qualify for Bookshare.org. The law establishing the disability requirements for Bookshare.org is the same law used by NLS (the Library of Congress' program) and RFB&D. The requirements used by Bookshare.org are slightly more restrictive than those used by RFB&D, because Bookshare.org is limiting membership to U.S. residents only. The disability requirements used by Bookshare.org should be the same as RFB&D. Proof of NLS services will also be accepted as proof of qualification for Bookshare.org. In other words, Bookshare.org is providing additional services to the same people who are already receiving accessible books through existing alternative channels. Teachers and students who do not qualify for Bookshare.org may not have access to Bookshare.org content and must purchase their own copies of all books. How can a school sign up its students for Bookshare.org? For more information on signing up students, please visit the School and Group Accounts page. Are the digital books from Bookshare.org all proofread? All of the books marked as Excellent quality have been proofread or come directly from publishers or authors in high quality formats. Approximately 80% of our books are rated Excellent as of 2007. Bookshare.org offers an alternative for access that is much better than scanning. If the book is already available from Bookshare.org, then access can be achieved without investing the hours of scanning the book. Can a school provide e-texts obtained from publishers to Bookshare.org? No, schools cannot provide e-texts obtained from publishers to Bookshare.org. Bookshare.org has a very generous exemption from copyright law for accepting scanned books created from printed books (the Chafee Amendment). However, our exemption does not permit us to breach, or encourage others to breach, other agreements that they have made. For example, almost all electronic books come with license agreements that restrict the user from providing the electronic books to anybody else. Bookshare.org does not want to receive any books where the provider of the books would be violating some other agreement. Because of this, Bookshare.org does not accept commercial e-books as submissions. In addition, some state laws require publishers to provide schools with electronic text of textbooks (i.e. California, under AB 422). These e-texts come with significant strings and restrictions, due to the mandate placed on publishers to provide electronic copies of their books. Bookshare.org does not accept such state-mandated e-texts as submissions. However, in some cases, we are supplying books to students to assist publishers to meet their obligations under such state laws. Bookshare.org also won't accept e-texts created by other accessible books providers, such as NLS and RFB&D. Bookshare.org WILL accept e-texts directly from publishers or authors. Bookshare.org WILL accept books that were originally scanned by you or your school. Find out more about submitting books. More questions? Our mission is to improve the world of access to literacy for people with disabilities. If you have any questions or ideas for making Bookshare.org better, please contact us.
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Bookshare.org was created and is maintained by Benetech, a nonprofit organization, and is Bobby-approved. The Bookshare trademark is used under license from its registered owner, Follett Library Resources division of Follett Corporation. |
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