Bookshare, US, an online accessible library for individuals with print disabilities, has announced partnerships with leading publishers in the US. Two dozen publishers have signed agreements with Bookshare to provide digital content, which over time will add tens of thousands of books in accessible formats to the Bookshare collection. Publishers who have signed agreements with Bookshare include O'Reilly Media, Random House, Scholastic, HarperCollins, Brookings Institution Press, De Capo Press, Modern Language Association of America, The Hachette Book Group and Townsend Press.
Agreements with publishers, many of which include permissions to distribute worldwide, will add a wealth of accessible books to Bookshare, including academic, scientific and technical books; and textbooks for students in grades K-12, higher education, graduate school, and continuing education. By providing Bookshare with digital files, publishers can rely on the organisation to distribute books to qualified individuals and fulfill their compliance obligations under the Chafee Amendment of the U.S. Copyright Law (17 U.S.C. § 121).
Using proprietary conversion tools, Bookshare can easily convert EPUB (e-book standard) files and other formats received from publishers into accessible formats such as DAISY 3.0 (Digital Accessible Information System) and BRF (Braille Ready File), saving publishers the time and expense of producing accessible formats. A further benefit of partnering with Bookshare is the Digital Rights Management (DRM) technology that Bookshare adds to every book downloaded by a member to protect publishers' copyright interests and guard against illegal sharing.
Bookshare's collection includes more than 46,000 titles and is growing at a rate of over 1,000 books per month from contributions from publishers, universities, downloads processed from the NIMAC (National Instructional Materials Accessibility Center), and scanned books contributed by volunteers. The Bookshare library is expected to increase to over 100,000 books by 2012 with publisher and university contributions augmenting the books from the extended volunteer and nonprofit network.
