Volunteer Overview

Sections 

The Benefits of Volunteering

Volunteering for Bookshare has a number of benefits:

  • Volunteers serve over 100,000 people with print disabilities who would otherwise not have easy access to accessible reading material.
  • Volunteers are free to shape the content of the Bookshare library by scanning and submitting the books they want to make available.
  • The Bookshare Volunteer community is very active and has book clubs, a discussion group, awards and events.
  • Bookshare awards $2.50 in credits for successfully submitting or proofreading a book. Bookshare applies these credits to your account once the book has been added to the library. Volunteers with print disabilities can apply these credits toward their membership fees. All Volunteers can donate their credits to Bookshare Members. For more information about donating credits, contact the Bookshare Volunteer Coordinator.

 

Sign up to Volunteer

Registering as a Bookshare volunteer is easy:      

  • If you are a Bookshare Member, log in to Bookshare and select “My Account.”  Then select the “Volunteering” tab and follow the instructions to sign up as a Volunteer.       
  • If you are not a Bookshare Member, just sign up to volunteer.

 

Selecting a Volunteer Position

We are looking for people with the following qualities:        

  • Attention to detail        
  • Excellent written communication skills        
  • Ability to work independently        
  • A passion for reading       
  • An interest in working with a non-profit at the intersection of books, technology and disability service.

 

There are several ways to help listed below:       

  • Volunteer at a Distance Online
  • Volunteer In-House at Bookshare  
  • Special Projects 

 

Volunteer at a Distance Online

 

Proofread Digital Books

Many of the books in the Bookshare collection are print books that have been scanned and proofread. Volunteers are essential to this process. As a Volunteer, you would help:       

  • Scan new books and submit them electronically to the Bookshare library.       
  • Proofread digital files of books that have already been scanned to improve quality.      
  • Verify book information, synopses and categories to make it quicker and easier for Members to locate the books they want to read.       
  • Write reviews of books to help Members find books that match their interests.

 

To get started, visit the Volunteer Sign Up page.

 

Write Summaries in English of Books in Tamil and/or Hindi

Bookshare International was launched in Oct 2008 to reach out to the global community and provide online library services to those with print disabilities in many countries. You can help by using your knowledge of Hindi, Tamil or both to help us add English synopses of these books to the Bookshare library catalog. If you are interested in this position, please contact us at http://www.bookshare.org/contactUs - select “Volunteering"

 

Design User Interface/Interaction Features

Bookshare needs volunteer engineers to work with User Interface (UI) design projects on an ad hoc basis. You can help by working on projects that include web design, desktop software design and/or browser-based software design. Most projects are on a 2-3 month timeline. If you are interested in this position, please contact us at http://www.bookshare.org/contactUs - select “Volunteering" 

 

Volunteer In-House at Bookshare

Proofreading & Collection Development

This volunteer position involves a combination of crucial tasks with Bookshare's Collection Development department which is responsible for growing our online library of accessible books for people with print disabilities. In this internship, you would help:      

  • Conduct quality checks on books that have been scanned and submitted to the library.        
  • Proofread high priority scanned books for the library.        
  • Assist with the creation of a proofreading manual for partner organizations.       
  • Conduct inventory checks on books ordered for processing.

 

If you are interested in this position, please contact us http://www.bookshare.org/contactUs - select “Volunteering"

 

Synopsis Writer 

Once a book is in the Bookshare library it must be findable. Metadata – data about data – is the information about the title, author, ISBN and book summaries (synopses). You can help:       

  • Write synopses for books in the Bookshare library.     
  • Review and update other book metadata.

If you are interested in this position, please contact us at http://www.bookshare.org/contactUs - select “Volunteering"

 

 

Engineering Volunteer

Our volunteer engineers work on one of several ongoing projects based on their qualifications and available time. In this internship you would:       

  • Create a full text search engine for our 45,000 books stored in XML format.       
  • Work on our document conversion libraries.       
  • Create a JSON-driven mapping widget (Javascript Object Notation) using Javascript. This will be used to provide geographical display for certain reports in our reporting application.       
  • Create a relevancy engine to relate the content of our 100,000 books.       
  • Work on an online DAISY ebook reader, using Javascript (for user interaction features) and text to speech via an existing Flash component.

If you are interested in this position, please contact us at http://www.bookshare.org/contactUs - select “Volunteering"

 

Special Projects

Bookshare has an ongoing need for Volunteers to work on projects of high priority that are sometimes of short duration and require specialized skills. These projects have include:       

  • Outreach to universities.       
  • Research and writing projects.       
  • Marketing material, graphics and video production.       
  • Data entry, filing and administrative tasks.       
  • XML, MathML, wiki and CMS work.

 

If you are interested in such positions and are willing to be on-call for when the need arises, please contact Bookshare at http://www.bookshare.org/contactUs - select “Volunteering"

 

  • Your contact information (please specify if you are available to work on-site in Palo Alto):       
  • Area(s) of interest       
  • Skill set       
  • Resume       
  • Your availability

 

Ready to sign up?

Great! Visit our Volunteer Sign Up page to get started. We look forward to working with you.

In This Section

Meet Some of Bookshare’s Volunteers

I've met a lot of people I really like and admire, who not only brighten my day with their humor and writing and thinking abilities but help me to appreciate my health and not complain about minor aches and pains. I get to read twice as many books as I would otherwise, because I read as I proofread, and also read on my own.

 — Grandma Cindy  

Hi, my name is Kim Friedman and I volunteer for Bookshare because I have a library at my fingertips because of it. I'm a recent computer user and I use Jaws 11 as my screen reader plus I have a BrailleNote mPower 32 which has a Braille display. It's very useful because I generally download my books in the .BRF format so if I wish to read a book, I can just read it in Braille without the need of speech.

— Kim Friedman