Beneblog: Technology Meets Society

FEBRUARY 3, 2016

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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Beneblog: Technology Meets Society

AUGUST 16, 2011

The goal of the DIAGRAM R&D Center is to greatly improve access to graphical information for students with print disabilities (for example, helping blind students get access to important graphics inside textbooks). We are also building a content model for making images more accessible.

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Beneblog: Technology Meets Society

JANUARY 17, 2014

Bookshare: Solving the “Accessible Book Famine” Twelve years ago, we had an idea for recreating the traditional library for people with print disabilities—such as those who are blind, cannot physically turn the pages of a book, or have learning disabilities, like dyslexia—using the then-emerging technologies of digital books and crowdsourcing.

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Tech Soup

FEBRUARY 21, 2013

As smartphones and tablets grow in popularity, mobile optimization is something libraries and nonprofits should pay close attention to in the coming year. Why should mobile be part of libraries and nonprofits' game plan? Multiple studies have found that more people are accessing the web from a mobile device. Why Mobile?

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Beneblog: Technology Meets Society

FEBRUARY 4, 2013

Bookshare and our other Access to Literacy initiatives, including the DIAGRAM Center and Route 66 Literacy, all made big strides this year through the significant dedication of the community that makes it all happen. At the close of 2012, we are five years into our work in education and are serving over 230,000 students.

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Beneblog: Technology Meets Society

OCTOBER 27, 2014

“They get frustrated and don’t want to read,” she says, “but access to digital books and reading technologies changed all that for Zach.” Zach Bryant The change happened when Zach was in high school and his Assistive Technology teacher introduced him to Benetech’s Bookshare library. Thank you for your support!

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Beneblog: Technology Meets Society

FEBRUARY 18, 2013

The goal of the Treaty is to make a copyright exception for the blind and other people with disabilities that stop them from reading print, and to make import and export of accessible content legal. My core point: Don’t put up bureaucratic barriers to access. The biggest challenge for access is that it’s expensive.

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Beneblog: Technology Meets Society

AUGUST 10, 2011

Benetech got a call recently from an excited Bookshare member who had been waiting to download our new Read2Go accessible e-book application for Apple devices. Graduate student Maria Georgakarakou, who is blind, gave us a rave review for the Read2Go app which allows those with print disabilities to listen to books in the DAISY audio format.

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Beneblog: Technology Meets Society

NOVEMBER 20, 2006

We have been helping blind and print disabled people gain access to books for over 17 years. Two recent experiences underscored different parts of this struggle to deliver access. It's great to see someone still using one of our products to access books for this length of time. They face barriers enough without adding more!

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Washington Accessibility Student Library 100

Tech Soup

MARCH 5, 2014

Pottsboro Area Library in Texas. We of course got lots of great stories, and our winner is the Pottsboro Area Library. When librarian Dianne Connery came to the library a few years ago, she found a classic small town library situated in a converted post office building with the requisite institutional green paint job.

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Library Digital Story Teen 54

Beneblog: Technology Meets Society

SEPTEMBER 8, 2006

Our volunteers are essential to accomplishing Benetech's mission. From time to time, I like to highlight the contributions of particular volunteers. Today, I'd like to honor Matthew Devcich, a high school student and aspiring Eagle Scout, who chose to focus his major Scout project on Bookshare.org.

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Beneblog: Technology Meets Society

DECEMBER 1, 2014

Case in point: our accessible online library, Bookshare. Bookshare is the result of joint efforts of our partners in the education, technology, publishing, student, parent, and volunteer communities. accessibility Bookshare civil society data ethics human centered approach human rights IEEE Martus privacy'

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Beneblog: Technology Meets Society

JULY 3, 2013

Betsy Beaumon I recently had the honor to speak at the first-ever Braille Summit , hosted on June 19-21, 2013 by the National Library Service for the Blind and Physically Handicapped (NLS) and Perkins School for the Blind. Guest Beneblog by Betsy Beaumon, VP and General Manager, Benetech’s Global Literacy Program. Accordingly, U.S.

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Literacy eBook Images Accessibility 208

Tech Soup

APRIL 12, 2012

Get mobile broadband access for your organization with a donated fourth-generation (4G) modem or wireless hotspot from the Mobile Beacon Donation Program. This USB modem is handy for someone who often travels with their laptop, and needs broadband access as they go. CLEAR Spot 4G Apollo. CLEAR Modem with WiFi.

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Accessibility Mobile Classroom Library 54

Beneblog: Technology Meets Society

NOVEMBER 3, 2008

This is a guest blog from Anna Reid, an Amherst student who interned with Bookshare.org International this past summer. A related, but slightly different and less recognized issue, is the fact that people with disabilities such as blindness often have limited access to printed materials, even if they are well-educated.

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Beneblog: Technology Meets Society

DECEMBER 16, 2014

From people in Latin America who face severe water scarcity to at-risk human rights defenders and students with disabilities, our users and their families are the ones who best convey the impact of our work. Consider third grade student Brennan Draves. Brennan Draves and his mother, Lindsay Draves, at school. billion poor and unbanked.

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Beneblog: Technology Meets Society

APRIL 20, 2013

And when the idea of a peer-to-peer ebook library came to me, it was George who I went to with the idea. The book famine may be receding here in the United States with Bookshare and the increasing advent of universally designed and accessible ebooks, but globally we have only scratched the surface of the need.

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eBook Award Copyright Syria 221

Beneblog: Technology Meets Society

FEBRUARY 27, 2013

To explain our approach, let’s look at Bookshare , our accessible online library for people with print disabilities. Converting and delivering these accessible books was expensive and time consuming. With the old approaches, only a tiny fraction of print materials were made available in accessible formats. copyright law.

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Beneblog: Technology Meets Society

SEPTEMBER 21, 2012

Benetech's largest social enterprise is the Bookshare online library for people who are blind or otherwise disabled when it comes to reading print. The deal was: help people with disabilities that can't access books and don't hurt the economic interests of the publishers (and authors). copyright law. Department of Education).

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Beneblog: Technology Meets Society

DECEMBER 8, 2011

Led by Benetech’s VP of Engineering Gerardo Capiel, we will create an online space, SocialCoding4Good, where people in the tech community interested in social causes can volunteer ideas, connections, time and skills. Our members are now downloading accessible books at a rate of more than one million books per year!

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Guatemala Literacy Qatar Open Source 159

Get Fully Funded

FEBRUARY 23, 2021

Forms will also probably come in handy in the beginning for volunteer sign-up, client enrollment in programs, and many other tasks. Cloud storage: For file sharing and storage, you can start with Drive through Google Workspace, so all documents can be stored in a convenient, accessible place. Beware that Canva can be a real time suck.

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Tools Nonprofit Doc Google 105

Beneblog: Technology Meets Society

JANUARY 12, 2009

But, our new Bookshare for Education project with its likely prospect of increasing our student users one hundredfold meant we needed a rebuild. The new features built in are too many for me to list in a short blog post, but our team has prepared a brief on the new Accessibility and Ease of Use features. in the next few years.

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Beneblog: Technology Meets Society

OCTOBER 7, 2010

An Insider Reveals How the Latest Hot Books Are Added to Bookshare’s Collection of Accessible Titles A Guest Beneblog by Liz Halperin After working for many years as a volunteer for Bookshare, I became a paid proofreader for the collection about two years ago. students thanks to support from the U.S.

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Tech Soup

APRIL 25, 2014

Millions of low-income students rely on free or low-cost school meals. This means youth who had access to nutritious meals during the school year may be undernourished or hungry over the summer. But when summer vacation starts, the school meals end. Food Insecurity in a Land of Plenty. Department of Agriculture (USDA).

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Museum 2.0

AUGUST 8, 2010

Last month, I got a chance to talk with Nell Taylor, founder of the Chicago Underground Library. Our volunteers are the heart and soul and brains and heavy lifters (figuratively and-- when you have boxes of books involved-- literally) of our organization. Nell will be responding to comments on this blog and can also be reached here.

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Beneblog: Technology Meets Society

MAY 22, 2013

Caltech’s small size makes its faculty and students incredibly agile when it comes to understanding a broad array of fields: there is a need here to be able to explain your work, and to understand the work of others. Support open data, open access to research, open content and open source. That’s the Caltech advantage!

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Tech Soup

MARCH 26, 2013

In actuality, hackathons are events where ideas are hatched and technology needs are met — making them excellent opportunities for nonprofits, charities, and libraries! The hackathon model is ideal for nonprofits and libraries because it brings together motivated volunteers to expedite a project on a limited budget.

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Tech Soup

JUNE 27, 2017

I'd like you to meet Kerry Thomson at Habitat for Humanity of Monroe County, Indiana; Lori Chidgey of Corazon Ministries in San Antonio, Texas; Betty Martin of Cape Girardeau Public Library in Missouri; and the late Rory Foster of the Northwoods Wildlife Center in Minocqua, Wisconsin. A World Where Everyone Has a Decent Place to Live.

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San Antonio Wisconsin St. Louis Indiana 50

Beneblog: Technology Meets Society

DECEMBER 22, 2008

Department of Education includes overseeing OSEP, the people who are funding our Bookshare for Education project to serve every student with a print disability in the United States. John Glass demonstrated the new version of Victor Reader Soft from HumanWare, one of our key access technology partners.

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Tech Soup

FEBRUARY 19, 2013

Basically, it allows one computer to serve several people in a lab or library at very low cost and with minimum maintenance. teamed up to supply Computer Technologies Program with everything they would need to set up a bank of MultiPoint Server-based public access computers. They routinely check email and access SaaS cloud services.

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Case Study Program Technology Studies 40

Achieve

JUNE 11, 2020

For many nonprofits, events that were expected to bring in fundraising dollars have been cancelled and internal processes have undergone drastic changes to adhere to social distancing guidelines – all while staff, volunteers, and clients are grappling with the difficulties of the “new normal”. . COIVD-19 Nonprofit Resource Library.

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Tech Soup

JUNE 22, 2015

Over the past year, we've been doing TechSoup Impact stories about nonprofits, churches, and libraries doing great work with TechSoup product donations. Full-time volunteer and board member Mercedes Pellet told us, "We could not have afforded the Desktop Office Suite for 50 employees — Office 365 is a real blessing.

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Tech Soup

JUNE 16, 2014

By making sure all your work, important documents, and communications stay in one central place – easy to search, and easier to access. You can manage volunteer applications, organize events, schedule meetings, and create a database of donor and sponsor details in minutes – all suited to the way your team works.

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Group Project Management Library 41

Beneblog: Technology Meets Society

FEBRUARY 4, 2007

It's great when one of our team is honored for their work, and Carrie Karnos has been one of our top Bookshare.org volunteers for years, including being Volunteer of the Year. She wrote, "Carrie Karnos is a Bookshare.org volunteer who has given blind readers access to more than 2,000 books. Congratulations, Carrie!

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Tech Soup

SEPTEMBER 7, 2011

For nonprofits, libraries, and their constituents, education is essential to keep knowledge and skills up to date. Online courses from easyLearning by Serebra provide busy nonprofiters with access to more than 1,500 technical and professional courses. Hear what other nonprofits and libraries are saying in our Community Forums.

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Library Instruction Instructional Course 47

Tech Soup

JUNE 2, 2015

Earlier this year, President Obama announced a bold initiative to expand access to technology jobs in the United States. " Here at TechSoup, we're excited to see nonprofits and public libraries as well as our donor partners, Microsoft and Cisco, involved with TechHire.

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Companies Tech Student America 36

Tech Soup

JANUARY 14, 2013

For nonprofits, libraries, and their constituents, training is esse ntial to keep knowledge and skills up to date. Organize software trainings for your library computer lab. Volunteer Management. Hear what other nonprofits and libraries are saying in our Community Forums and on the TechSoup Blog. at your library.

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