Great news from Book Share

Greetings. If you are or know a student, you might want to note the following information. The below announcement is taken from the
Book Share website,
which provides books to people with qualifying print disabilities, such as blindness or dyslexia. Software or hardware is needed to read the books since they are in the specialized formats of electronic Braille files and Daisy files. Open Book and Kurzweil 1000 are popular Optical Character Recognition or scanning programs that can read these formats, and hardware devices may include the PAC Mate, Braille Note, Victor Reader hardware/software, and others. This opens up many opportunities for students to learn, since at last count, Book Share had 34,400 books. Membership is $50 annually and a one time $25 setup fee. Read more on the site about how to join. Enjoy.

***Book Share announcement***

We're happy to share incredible news, which will transform Bookshare.org. On Friday, the Office of Special Education Programs of the U.S. federal Department of Education made a major five-year award of $32 million to Bookshare.org. This will further the objectives of the Individuals with Disabilities Education Act (IDEA), by supplying high quality textbooks and educational materials to students with special needs.

This funding is to fully support all schools and students with qualifying print disabilities in the United States, K-12 and post-secondary, with access to the entire Bookshare.org collection of accessible electronic books and to software for reading those books. As of October 1, 2007, we will cease charging these schools and students anything to join Bookshare.org. We also expect to add over 100,000 new educational titles in high quality DAISY and Braille formats over the next five years, getting students the terrific quality textbooks they need for academic success!