STM publisher Springer has signed an agreement to provide Bookshare with world rights to its titles. Bookshare provides people with visual impairments, physical disabilities and/or learning disabilities access to copyrighted digital accessible books. Springer published more than 7,500 book titles in 2012, and it is home to one of the world's largest Scientific, Technical and Medical (STM) eBook collection.
Springer claims to be the first major STM publisher to commit to making its books accessible at this scale. By contributing digital files directly to Bookshare, students with disabilities will receive accessible books in a timely fashion. Additionally, the cost of making these books available is reduced significantly.
Providing STM content in accessible formats is particularly difficult due to the highly graphical nature of the content. Digital files will be created in the EPUB2 file format which can be converted to specialised accessible formats such as DAISY. As a result of this agreement, Springer will deliver over 10,000 EPUB files to Bookshare, followed by thousands of new titles annually.
