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Bringing Millions of Books to Billions of People: Making the Book Truly Accessible

Beneblog: Technology Meets Society

The miracle of ebooks What if we had the ability to overcome these accessibility barriers, barriers that affect most of humanity, not just people with identified disabilities, wouldn’t we have the moral obligation to act? We can use the same ebook file to deliver the content ten different ways. We can do better!

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Social DRM: It’s About Equal Access for All

Beneblog: Technology Meets Society

Next month, I will be heading to TOC a couple of days early in order to participate in a W3C Workshop on eBooks and the Open Web Platform, where I will be talking about Social DRM (Digital Rights Management). However, strong DRM turns out to be an impediment to the commercial distribution of accessible ebooks.

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Donor Spotlight: Lavelle Fund for the Blind

Beneblog: Technology Meets Society

Twelve years ago, the Fund made its first grant to Benetech, in support of the then newly launched Bookshare , our accessible online library for people with disabilities that get in the way of reading print, including visual impairments and dyslexia. government and states like Texas.

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Commercial Availability: The Poison Pill for Marrakesh Treaty Implementation

Beneblog: Technology Meets Society

Libraries for people who are blind or dyslexic are the primary source of accessible books in audio, large print or braille. But, some companies want to empty the library shelves and insist that only books that can’t be purchased are allowed to be stocked in such libraries. Bookshare was created under the Section 121 U.S.

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Benetech’s New Image Description Tool Improves Accessibility of Graphical Content for Students with Print Disabilities

Beneblog: Technology Meets Society

Poet supports image descriptions for electronic books created in the international DAISY standard for digital talking books and will be compatible with descriptions for ebooks in the EPUB3 format. The teacher could then add alternate image descriptions and download the book again when they are done.

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What is in the Treaty of Marrakesh?

Beneblog: Technology Meets Society

However, as the founder of the Bookshare online library, we have a great deal at stake in how the Treaty gets implemented. Plus, it will especially help countries with less-developed libraries and services for people with disabilities by making it easier to tap large collections (like Bookshare) in other countries.

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Bookshare without Borders: #1/3

Beneblog: Technology Meets Society

Bookshare International Library We’re always thinking about new ways in which Benetech could go deeper and help many more people. Bookshare , our flagship literacy program, is the world’s largest accessible library and currently serves more than 230,000 members with visual and learning disabilities.

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