News and Events

October news brought Bookshare closer to tens of thousands of educators, administrators and families.

• ISTE (International Society of Technology in Education) added Bookshare to its Curriculum Education Resources.
• Teacher Tips Blog listed Bookshare as a Top 100 Useful Tool.
• District Administration Online Daily enewsletter reminded educators of the benefits of Bookshare.
• Special Education Technology Practice Journal (SETP) printed a 6 page article written by Valerie Chernek in collaboration with Bookshare and Don Johnston Incorporated..."Text Readers Make Universal Access to Core Curriculum Possible for U.S. Schools; Timely for Students with Print Disabilities."
• Peter Scott's Library Blog, Library Worm and CEC Smart Brief Online featured Bookshare's new partnership with Encyclopaedia Britannica.
• Simmons College Boston List Serve and RESNA List Serve shared Bookshare news with members.

K-12 Publications, Parent Magazines and Educational Organizations Talk About the Benefits of Bookshare

 September 2009 - Several K-12 publications, parent magazines and educational organizations are talking about the benefits of Bookshare for students and individuals with print disabilities in their publications and newsletters. Here are a few highlights!

• Our Bookshare Iowa Member story featuring Kurtis Broeg and Megan Krapfl was featured in the Exceptional Parent Magazine (Aug/Sept) education issue and the SEEN (SouthEast Education Network) print magazine.
• The AASL (American Association of School Librarians) mentioned Bookshare in their Hot Links news section.
• Technology Connection (K-12 Librarians and Media Specialists), spotlighted Bookshare in their September Hot Stuff column print publication.
• LD Online (National Center on Learning Disabilities) listed Bookshare as a free resource for accessible books in their August Parent News.
• Learning Magazine which reaches 130,000 K-8 teachers showcased Bookshare in their "Back-to-School" publication.
• ATechNews selected Bookshare Members Laura Koch from Muscatine Community School District, Muscatine, IA and Paula Brannon from the FL School for Deaf and Blind as feature stories.
• NICHCY, The National Dissemination Center for Children with Disabilities, named Bookshare #2 of their favorite Back to School top 10 best resources.

First Partnerships with Prestigious University Presses Add Scholarly and Award-Winning Titles to Bookshare Library

 July 22, 2009 - Three prestigious university publishers have joined the Bookshare Publisher Partner Program to provide digital books for Bookshare's accessible online library for people with print disabilities. The University of Chicago Press, the University of California Press and New York University Press have all agreed to provide Bookshare with digital book files that will contribute thousands of new scholarly works to the Bookshare collection. Read the press release.

American Association of Retired Persons (AARP) Bulletin Today Covers Bookshare

 June 8, 2009 - The Bulletin of the American Association of Retired Persons (AARP) covers Benetech's accessible Bookshare library, entitled "Making Books Accessible for Those with Disabilities".

PLEXTALK™ Pocket Offers Individuals Who Are Blind and Visually Impaired a New Portable DAISY Player that Reads Bookshare Digital Books

 Bookshare and Shinano Kenshi Corporation, Ltd. Announce Partnership July 7, 2009 - Palo Alto, CA - Bookshare announced a partnership with Shinano Kenshi Corporation, Ltd. (Japan and North America), a global leader in advanced technology hardware and precision electronics. This partnership will allow Bookshare members to easily download and read tens of thousands of accessible books on the new PLEXTALK™ pocket portable digital DAISY player and recorder. DAISY (Digital Accessible Information System) players, like the PLEXTALK Pocket, easily convert Bookshare's digital text files to speech so books and newspapers can be read aloud. The PLEXTALK Pocket offers a new choice in portable devices to our Bookshare members and introduces the latest digital book navigation. Read the press release.

Individuals with Print Disabilities Gain New Opportunities to Read Bookshare Digital Books Using Mobile Speak Phone Technologies

 Bookshare and Code Factory Announce Partnership July 7, 2009, Palo Alto, CA - Individuals with print disabilities can now choose new, low-cost mobile technologies to read more than 50,000 digital books and periodicals thanks to a partnership between Bookshare and Code Factory, Barcelona Spain; a leading global provider of screen readers, screen magnifiers, and Braille interfaces for a wide range of mainstream mobile devices. The Mobile Speak screen readers for mobile phones developed by Code Factory use synthesized speech to read aloud information displayed on the mobile phone screens including ebooks stored on their phones. Using this technology, Bookshare members who are blind or have visual impairments will have new alternatives and features like navigation, bookmarking and text search, to access digital books for work, study or reading pleasure. Read the press release.

Blogging About Bookshare

Many bloggers have also written about Bookshare including a librarian's blog, No Shelf Required, a blog posted by the Course materials, Innovation, & Technology in Education (CITE) group, the Literacy and Reading News blog, 508portal.com, DigitalText, Nan Hawthorn's Booking the Middle Ages, Suite101, Flight Into Fantasy, Instructify, Smart Senior, and Pratham Books. The blog abledbody posted a thoughtful Q & A with Jim Fruchterman about Bookshare, and a blog entry by Sharing Books announced a partnership with Bookshare to make titles from the Sharing Books collection available to Bookshare members.

e-Campus News Covers Bookshare's National Press Event

 April 30, 2009 - Washington DC - e-Campus News, an online e-zine of eSchool News covers Benetech CEO Jim Fruchterman's address to the National Press Club, entitled "More Books Coming To Students With Disabilities".

U.S. Colleges and Universities Partner with Bookshare

 April 29, 2009, Washington DC - Bookshare announced today a University Partnership Program to significantly increase the availability of accessible materials and textbooks on behalf of the hundreds of thousands of U.S. post-secondary students who have a disability that keeps them from effectively reading printed books. Read the press release.

U.S. Trade and Textbook Publishers Partner with Bookshare

 April 29, 2009, Washington DC - In an effort to improve the availability and quantity of digital accessible educational books, textbooks and trade books, Bookshare, the world’s largest online accessible library for individuals with print disabilities, today announced partnerships with leading U.S. trade and K-12 publishers. Two dozen publishers have signed agreements with Bookshare to provide digital content, which over time will add tens of thousands of books in accessible formats to the Bookshare collection. These publishers include Brookings Institution Press, De Capo Press, HarperCollins, Modern Language Association of America, O’Reilly Media, Random House, Scholastic, The Hachette Book Group, and Townsend Press. Read the press release.

Benetech CEO Jim Fruchterman to Speak at the National Press Club

 April 13, 2009, Palo Alto, CA - Benetech CEO Jim Fruchterman has been invited to speak this month at the National Press Club in Washington, D.C. Fruchterman will talk about Benetech’s Bookshare library which has led global initiatives to increase the availability of accessible published materials for individuals with print disabilities. Bookshare is the world's largest online library of accessible books and periodicals for people who are blind, have low vision, a physical disability or a reading disability that prevents them from easily reading a traditional printed book. During the event, Fruchterman will announce Bookshare’s University Partnership Program and new partnerships with major publishers who have agreed to donate digital files to Bookshare for qualified individuals to download. Read the press release about the NPC event here.

Benetech Launches New Bookshare Library

 January 28, 2009, Palo Alto, CA - Bookshare, the world's largest accessible online library for people with print disabilities, has been completely rebuilt to make it significantly easier for individuals with print disabilities to access the books they want and need. The new library offers many improvements including strengthened quality control standards for book content, free assistive software applications and a rapidly expanding collection of digital files from contributing publishers. The design changes allow Bookshare to serve its growing membership of over 43,000 users and accommodate its collection of more than 43,000 texts. Bookshare now features the current best practices for website accessibility, Google-like search functions and more Braille options for Bookshare members who are blind. Read the press release about the new Bookshare.

Bookshare Videos On YouTube

 November 12, 2008, Palo Alto, CA ‚Äì Eight videos of Bookshare™ student Members have been uploaded to the popular video website YouTube.com. The videos include a profile of Bookshare member Steffon Middleton, a student at the Alabama School for the Blind. Steffon is one of four students profiled in this video series which also includes comments from the students’ teachers and parents. Each student is also featured in a shorter "how-to" video in which they demonstrate how they read books from the Bookshare library. You can view all the videos, plus accessible MP3 files of these videos, on the Member Stories page.

Bookshare Covered By Indian Press

 October 26, 2008, Palo Alto, CA - Several media organizations in India recently covered Benetech's new partnerships with Indian organizations to support the Bookshare library and provide accessible digital texts. These partnerships will help International Bookshare begin to serve India's ten million blind people, three million of whom are children. The Times of India posted a story titled For Print-Disabled Reading Best Sellers Is Just A Click Away and the Hindustan Times ran a story about the Online Library for The Blind.

The article in the Indian Express, Bookshare Inks Pact With Three Organizations in India, quoted Dr. Taraporevala, Director of Xavier's Resource Centre for the Visually Challenged (XRCVC) in Mumbai which will manage the registration of qualified Bookshare Members in West India. "Print-disabled persons cannot be kept away from the printed books and hence the partnership will play a key role," said Dr. Taraporevala.

Bookshare Launches Newsletter

 October 17, 2008, Palo Alto, CA - Read the premiere edition of the Bookshare newsletter, The Bookshare Bulletin, which provides news and information to the Bookshare community. The Bookshare Bulletin offers a collection of stories describing how Bookshare is making an impact on the lives of people with print disabilities and where it's headed in the future.