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When a volunteer's scanned or proofread book is approved into Bookshare®'s collection, both the scanner and the proofreader automatically earn Volunteer Reward Credits. These credits can be used to reduce the cost of a Bookshare membership* for a person with a... more
It's easy to volunteer for Bookshare!Scanning: You can make virtually any book accessible if you are willing to scan the file and submit it to Bookshare. If you have a computer with internet access, a scanner with scan-to-text software, basic computer skills, and a... more
Make sure there are no partially bolded or italicized words. Words should have each letter either all bolded, all italicized, or all normal. Random bolding and italicizing happens when a scanner presses too hard on the book when scanning it and the scanner misreads the... more
Sometimes when the book is printed a word will be split between two pages and connected with a hyphen. If this happens, move the end of the split word to the page above along with any punctuation immediately following it. Here's an example:*The boy walked through a... more
Check that any squished-together words are separated correctly. This happens frequently with smaller fonts. Example: "Her highness loved thecolor blue." "thecolor" should be separated into two words: "the" and "color"Check that "separated words" are connected correctly... more
No! If you have checked out a book and no longer want to proofread it (because the subject matter doesn't interest you, because it's not what you expected, or for whatever reason), feel free to release it back to the Checkout Queue for someone else to proofread. To... more
Yes! Bookshare is a project of Benetech, which is a nonprofit organization. We are able to provide letters and sign paperwork confirming community service as needed, provided you follow our procedures.We can provide proof of your volunteer hours if you do the following... more
Image Description volunteers advance the accessibility of the Bookshare collection by describing images in textbooks and childrens' books, using our open-source Poet Image Description tool developed by our DIAGRAM Center. Since we launched Poet in 2012, our volunteers... more
Once you have proofread your book, you must check it in for approval. A staff member or qualified volunteer will review it and either approve it or return it for more editing with notes about what to fix. Your book will typically reviewed within 7 business days of... more
It depends. Proofreaders may choose any book to proofread, just like scanners may choose any book to scan. The time in which your book will be proofread will depend on how well the book is scanned, how long or complicated the book is, and whether or not a proofreader... more
For quality control, we ask that different people scan and proofread each book. Occasionally we will make an exception for a highly-skilled, experienced volunteer. If you would like to be considered for this exception, please Request Help.
Yes! The Wish List is a list of books that have been requested by our members for reading outside of the classroom. We encourage volunteers to check this list regularly and choose titles to scan and proof. Adding a Wist List title guarantees that you will make... more
It's very important to keep all blank pages and note that they are blank by writing "blank page" in square brackets. If you remove them you'll throw off the page numbering. Writing "blank page" lets the reader know that the page is supposed to be blank, and information... more
The converter will delete tabs, so in a table of contents replace any tabs with spaces. Also, if the doc automatically adds an indent at the top of the page, indents all the text, or indents some of the paragraphs, don’t worry because the converter will delete the... more
Bullets will be lost during conversion unless they are changed to asterisks; please change them! * (this is an asterisk) (this is a bullet)