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Accessible eBooks for Equal Opportunity

Beneblog: Technology Meets Society

In the United States, there are all too many students like Kevin, who are denied equal opportunity to engage in the same curriculum as their peers without disabilities. In 2004, the United States passed the Individuals with Disabilities Education Act , requiring schools to provide special education services to eligible students.

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Advancing Reading Equality with Bookshare’s Exponential Growth

Beneblog: Technology Meets Society

Thousands of ebooks are pouring into the collection each month thanks to the dedication of our volunteers around the world and partnerships with more than 500 socially responsible publishers who donate their digital files. These milestones represent a giant leap forward in the number of students and individuals we serve.

Literacy 129
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Donor Spotlight: Lavelle Fund for the Blind

Beneblog: Technology Meets Society

Frankly, it didn’t go as well as we had hoped, and Lavelle worked with us to retarget the grant to focus on students with visual impairments. This experience helped us prove the potential of Bookshare to meet the needs of students with disabilities. Even in the United States, this was true of probably a quarter of our student users.

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Technological Protection Measures and the Blind

Beneblog: Technology Meets Society

This has created the ironic situation where blind people, who because of their disability require access to digital copies, have been effectively locked out of purchasing ebooks for the last decade. The digital content is presented as text, but the built-in read-aloud capability is disabled because of ambiguity over audio rights.

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Leveraging Impact through Technology (LIT)

Beneblog: Technology Meets Society

Today I’m delighted to share the exciting news about the new award we just received from OSEP to build upon Bookshare’s success and significantly improve access for students with disabilities. Thousands of ebooks pour into the library from over 168 publishers and textbook requests are fulfilled every month. In the U.S.,

Impact 140
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Rockstar Nairobi Social Entrepreneur

Beneblog: Technology Meets Society

She runs a for-profit social enterprise named Daproim that provides data entry services using disadvantaged students as their primary workforce. Bookshare is our large digital library for students with disabilities such as blindness or dyslexia. Daproim has more than 7600 applications from Kenyan students who want to work there.

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Betsy Beaumon on Benetech's Literacy Program

Beneblog: Technology Meets Society

After all, in the world of eBooks, ten years is pretty old! What began as a small online library, with a collection built in large part by its users, is now the primary national supplier of electronic accessible educational materials for students with print disabilities. Thanks again!

Literacy 166