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Frequently Asked Questions Here are some common questions that are asked about Bookshare.org
Bookshare.org is an online community that enables people with visual and other print disabilities to legally share scanned books. It is designed exclusively for the use of the blind and other individuals with print related disabilities. Bookshare.org has been in operation since February, 2002, and was created by Benetech (formerly Arkenstone). Bookshare.org membership is available to people who provide proof of a print disability, such as blindness, low vision, a reading disability or a mobility impairment that makes it difficult or impossible to read standard print. Find out more about membership. I work at a school. How can I get books for my students? Bookshare.org offers three ways for your school or group to provide books to the students or individuals with whom you work: institutional access, sponsored subscription accounts, or individual subscriptions. To find out more, please visit our school and group account page. How can I order embossed Braille books? Bookshare.org books can be downloaded by subscribing members, or ordered in embossed Braille by members or non-members. Read more information about ordering embossed Braille books. Is Bookshare.org only for students? No. Bookshare.org is for any qualified individual. The requirements for qualification are very similar to those required for access to more traditional services such as Recording for the Blind and Dyslexic (RFB&D) or the National Library Service for the Blind and Physically Handicapped, a division of the Library of Congress (NLS). Bookshare.org is available to those who can provide proof of their print related disability. This certification may come from a doctor, rehabilitation counselor or other authorized professional. Find out more about proof of disability. In which formats are the books available? Books from Bookshare.org are available in two specialized formats, meaning formats specifically designed for people with disabilities. The two formats are the NISO/DAISY digital talking book standard and the Braille digital format BRF. Find out more about formats. The cost for an annual subscription with no per-book download charges is $25.00 to sign up and $50.00 for the annual subscription. Bookshare.org's goal is to break even financially with modest membership fees and extensive volunteer support from its community of members and supporters. Students and schools in the U.S. have had their subscriptions paid for thanks to the generous support of the Office of Special Education Programs of the U.S. federal Department of Education. It's easy! Simply register by visiting the Join link. Then, go to the Submit a Book link to find out more about submitting books. It's easy! Just let us know you're interested by sending an email to volunteer@bookshare.org, and we'll get you started. Read more About Volunteering, or some of the Frequently Asked Volunteer Questions. What types of books are available through Bookshare.org? The goal of Bookshare.org is to make as many books as possible available to individuals with visual impairments and reading disabilities. The collection is primarily shaped by members and volunteers who submit books. Use the search functions in the toolbar area of each web page to look for books. You can search without registering or becoming a member. What types of periodicals are available from Bookshare.org? Newspapers and magazines are now available through Bookshare.org, in partnership with the National Federation of the Blind through its NFB-NEWSLINEŠ service. Find out more About newspapers and magazines. Where does Bookshare.org get books in digital form? The primary source for Bookshare.org books is the community of members and volunteers. There are many people who routinely use a computer to scan a book or other text into machine-readable form to make it accessible for their own use. Converting a book in this way can take up to several hours. We believe that disabled people all across the United States wanting to read the same text needlessly repeat many hours of work. Bookshare.org seeks to maximize the efficiency of this process by making a work scanned by only one or a few people available to thousands of people with qualifying disabilities. Some books are also provided by publishers or authors who provide original digital copies with permission for Bookshare.org to make them available to people with disabilities. Do you have a list of books you need scanned? Yes! Members are encouraged to consult the Bookshare.org Wish List page before scanning their next book. Isn't it illegal to share copyrighted material on the Internet? In general, it would be illegal to share or distribute copyrighted works of literature. However, there is a special provision in U.S. copyright law that explicitly gives qualified nonprofit companies such as Benetech the ability to distribute copyrighted materials in a specialized format for use by the disabled. Section 17 U.S.C. § 121 of the copyright law states in part: "... it is not an infringement of copyright for an authorized entity to reproduce or to distribute copies ... of a previously published, nondramatic literary work if such copies ... are reproduced or distributed in specialized formats exclusively for use by blind or other persons with disabilities." Find out more about Why this is Legal. NISO/DAISY 3 is the digital talking book standard, supported by many leading libraries for the disabled worldwide. It provides the capability to distribute books digitally with powerful indexing and bookmarking to makes it easy to move quickly from one part of a book to another. Because of constraints on storage and network capacity, early in its life, Bookshare.org's DAISY books contain only the text portion of documents. For members who wish to listen to the books, DAISY format book reading software with built in text-to-speech is included with membership. As a format, DAISY supports delivering books that include both digital text and recorded human speech. A DAISY document is not required to have both of these components, but the standard provides a way to deliver both. You can find out more about the DAISY consortium at www.daisy.org. The BRF format is the standard contracted (Grade II) digital Braille format. BRF files may be used to produce hard copy (embossed) Braille, read with a refreshable Braille display or be back translated to standard computer text for use with a speech device. If I do not live in the United States, can I still join Bookshare.org? Yes, but we don't have permission to distribute most of our books outside the U.S. yet. Those residing in the United States may access the entire Bookshare.org collection. Bookshare.org operates under a unique exception in the U.S. federal copyright law that was changed in 1996 to permit this expanded access. Under U.S. copyright law, we are permitted to provide copyrighted materials directly to Americans. Our goal is to expand access to books for as many people as possible, but only in the context of what is legally permitted. Bookshare.org does have permission to distribute selected copyrighted titles to people with disabilities worldwide: to find out more about Bookshare.org for individuals with qualifying disabilities outside the United States, please visit our International Visitors page. What restrictions will be placed on my use of the books I obtain from Bookshare.org? Members are permitted to use Bookshare.org books for their own personal use. We use Digital Rights Management (DRM) technology and contractual agreements with our members to maximize personal access to books and minimize abuse of this privilege. Bookshare.org copyrighted books are not available to the non-disabled public. What is Benetech and how can I find out more? The Benetech Initiative is a nonprofit venture that provides social benefits by harnessing the power of technology to meet important social needs. Benetech delivers these benefits using the innovative model of social enterprise, which combines market forces with philanthropic capital and entrepreneurial drive. It is the nonprofit successor to Arkenstone, which developed reading machines for people with visual and learning disabilities. To find out more about Benetech, please visit Benetech's website at www.benetech.org. There you can browse information about Benetech's vision, implementation, and ongoing projects. Is Benetech a part of Freedom Scientific? No. Freedom Scientific is a for-profit company that purchased the Arkenstone reading system business in 2000. Benetech did some transitional work for Freedom Scientific, but they are two entirely independent organizations. Our relationship with Freedom Scientific is now the same as we enjoy with other vendors of assistive technology, and this entire vendor community is very important to our mission of providing greater choice in access for people with disabilities. What if I can't find the book I'm looking for on Bookshare.org? Can't find the book your or your students need for school? Send us an email at schoolbookrequest@bookshare.org and we'll try to support your school-related request directly. This email address is for books needed by schools and students for schoolwork. (Note: textbooks need to be requested through the NIMAC repository. Find out more information on NIMAC-sourced titles and their restrictions.) Please be sure to include the following information in the email if you can: Book Title; Author, ISBN number (this will speed things up a lot); the reason you need the book; and the grade you are currently teaching or attending in school or college. We are also asking teachers and educators for recommended reading lists. Send your lists early for addition to the library before the 2008 school year. Email readinglists@bookshare.org. At this time, we can only take book requests from students and educators. For all other requests, please visit our Wishlist, available from Friends of Bookshare. While we try to process all student and teacher book requests, please understand that in some circumstances the requested material may not be available or suitable for our scanning processes. We will reply to your email within three business days, so that you know the status of your request. |
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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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