What we can't convert

For legal or technical reasons, there are a number of formats we can't make available in Bookshare. We may receive some titles from publisher partners (for example, graphic novels) that we wouldn't be able to make available through our in-house processes. (Learn how we are working to make non-text content accessible here: http://www.diagramcenter.org.)

Advanced reading (review) copies and publisher galleys : We do not scan advanced reading copies or publisher galleys at Bookshare.
Atlases: We cannot scan images at Bookshare. All images must be described by volunteers or vendors. As these books are nearly completely images, they are not practical for us to process. All of these books must come to us directly from a publishing partner.
Book chapters and portions of books: We only scan entire books into the collection. With the DAISY standard, chapters are easy to find within the entire book.
Brochures and pamphlets without copyrights: We cannot scan materials for which we do not have copyright proof.
Comic books, graphic novels, and manga: We cannot scan images at Bookshare. All images must be described by volunteers or vendors. As these books are nearly completely images, they are not practical for us to process. Books in these formats must come to us directly from a publishing partner.
Cookbooks: The complex format, fractions, and images of cookbooks make them too complex for us to process in house. We do get many cookbooks from publisher partners and from volunteer scans.
Crosswords, sudoku and other puzzle books: We cannot scan these books because they rely primarily on two-dimensional format, and we cannot replicate that.
Dictionaries and encyclopedias: The content of these lengthy reference works is simply too complex for us to scan correctly and proofread.
E-books (or books published only in electronic form, where we do not have a publisher agreement): Most commercial e-book publishers license their content to one purchaser at a time. Since we do not know under what terms an e-book was purchased, we cannot accept a donated e-book from anyone but the original publisher or author.
Foreign languages: We do not have the OCR (Optical Character Recognition) software to recognize non-Roman fonts. We usually do not have proofreaders who can process books in languages other than English. Publishers and volunteers have submitted works in 20 languages, so there may be some content in a non-English language that you need.
Magazines: Our magazines are provided through a partnership with NFB Newsline. Please contact NFB if you would like a different selection.
Math books: We can do some math books. Equations in graphic form will be stripped out. They will not be described, as our vendors do not have the expertise to do this. We do have many textbooks from publishing partners and the NIMAC that have images.
Pop-up books, artists’ books, audio books, ancillary materials (including CD-ROMs, maps, tests, timelines, and other bundled items): Due to restrictions of copyright law, we can only scan traditional books and very selected pamphlets at this time.
Sheet music and books that are primarily sheet music: We do not have the ability to describe sheet music in text format. Any sheet music in books scanned in house will be stripped out. If a book comes from the NIMAC or the publisher, the images will be retained.
Teacher’s editions: We do not scan teachers’ editions at Bookshare.