Beneblog: Technology Meets Society

FEBRUARY 7, 2012

People with print disabilities around the world have a right to high-quality ebooks that they can read with assistive technology. Benetech’s Bookshare library continues to expand its international service providing accessible books and publications to members in more than 30 countries.

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Beneblog: Technology Meets Society

NOVEMBER 10, 2014

It became a burden to his family and caregivers to constantly drop what they were doing to turn a page, so he began seeking out ebooks. This reality changed when Frank found out about Benetech’s Bookshare accessible digital library for people with print disabilities. To continue this work, we depend on the support of generous donors.

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Life Gift eBook France 147

Tech Soup

JULY 24, 2014

Bringing mobile devices into adult library programs can be an excellent way to promote library e-media and teach digital literacy skills. Eastern) for Adult Library Programs Gone Mobile , where you can learn how libraries can help meet the need and demand for mobile-device assistance through creative programming.

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Library Mobile Idaho Program 47

Beneblog: Technology Meets Society

JANUARY 30, 2013

There is no better place to engage with colleagues about new technologies, changing business models, fresh ideas, and shared standards. 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).

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Accessibility eBook New York City Social 171

Beneblog: Technology Meets Society

APRIL 20, 2013

This is the field where I found my life’s calling, applying technology to meet critical needs of society, where the market is likely to fail. And when the idea of a peer-to-peer ebook library came to me, it was George who I went to with the idea. I especially want to acknowledge two people who helped make this award possible.

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eBook Award Copyright Syria 221

Beneblog: Technology Meets Society

SEPTEMBER 12, 2014

At Benetech, we always ask ourselves how our existing successful programs can reach more people who need our services and how we can apply technology in new ways to enrich and improve more lives. a11y accessibility Bookshare Braille DAISY ebooks Global Literacy print disabilities Reading' The majority of our members are U.S.

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Literacy eBook Global Audio 129

Beneblog: Technology Meets Society

FEBRUARY 8, 2013

The world has finally moved beyond just electronically creating books that are then distributed as ordinary print books to actually delivering digital ebooks. In technical terms, this means that the next version of the DAISY format, version 4, will be the same as EPUB3, the main format used by commercial publishers of ebooks.

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Accessibility Global eBook Copyright 155

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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Copyright United States Library eBook 100

Beneblog: Technology Meets Society

JANUARY 11, 2013

Creating the World’s Largest Collection of Accessible Arabic eBooks Access to knowledge is the critical first step on the path to economic, educational, and social development. In the first installment of this series, I described the Bookshare International library and where we hope to take it next.

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United Arab Emirates Qatar eBook Language 162

Beneblog: Technology Meets Society

JUNE 23, 2014

How can we use technology in a new way to improve people’s lives that is an order of magnitude better? Can we help stimulate the creation of far more technology-for-good ventures? Technology currently serves privileged groups through tools that provide access to education, literacy, health, and justice.

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Literacy eBook United Kingdom Accessibility 158

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.

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Literacy eBook Images Accessibility 208

Beneblog: Technology Meets Society

SEPTEMBER 8, 2013

Benetech was a proud endorser of these objections (under our legal organizational name of Beneficent Technology, Inc.). Wouldn''t that create more demand for our Bookshare online library? People with print disabilities are the most natural customers in the world for digital versions of books.

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Accessibility Amazon Library eBook 133

Beneblog: Technology Meets Society

OCTOBER 15, 2012

With technology, you can do incredible things, but with a galvanized community of supporters who work together toward a greater good, we can do anything. Benetech’s Bookshare library is living proof that real, transformative change happens through partnerships and by helping people unleash their talents and energies. copyright law.

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Library Student eBook Accessibility 164

Beneblog: Technology Meets Society

JANUARY 5, 2015

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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Fund India United States eBook 100

Beneblog: Technology Meets Society

JANUARY 7, 2013

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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India Literacy United Kingdom United States 225

Beneblog: Technology Meets Society

FEBRUARY 27, 2013

In my contribution to Ron’s book, I discuss the framework that guides us at Benetech, the technology nonprofit I lead. When I first started pursuing the idea of using technology to solve challenging social problems, it was a pretty radical idea. copyright law. Our lower cost model allowed us to invert the power structure.

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Develop Social Library eBook 144

Beneblog: Technology Meets Society

NOVEMBER 27, 2012

We believe that this means that circumvention needs to be addressed in the Treaty to ensure that access does not become a dead letter in an increasingly digital world, where people with disabilities get locked out of ebook content by contractual and technical means. We don’t think the commerciality issue belongs in the treaty.

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NonProfit Hub

MAY 2, 2017

From eBooks to webinars, there’s a heaping handful of other ways to raise money online. It’s not made specifically for mobile fundraising (like text-to-give technology, for instance), but it’s still an important part of your larger mobile strategy. Don’t just stop there, though. Let’s take a look. Get to reading and get to work!

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Library Marketing Nonprofit Podcast 52

Beneblog: Technology Meets Society

MAY 15, 2012

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. Books with image descriptions will go back into the Bookshare library for students with print disabilities to use in their coursework.

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Images Student Accessibility Content 133

Beneblog: Technology Meets Society

NOVEMBER 21, 2012

While our activities often creates jobs beyond the core high technology jobs around software development and user support, we don't see it as our core competency. For example, our Bookshare online library for the blind, uses several different social enterprises to do data entry and proofreading work on textbooks.

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Laos Data Digital New York City 235

Beneblog: Technology Meets Society

MAY 2, 2012

Bookshare, Benetech’s pioneering digital library for people with print disabilities, celebrated its 10th birthday last night with a terrific party that was attended by many of our long-time friends and supporters. As a result, we quickly became the largest online library for people with print disabilities. said Stevie. Thanks Stevie!

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Celebrate Google Literacy Library 145

Beneblog: Technology Meets Society

FEBRUARY 19, 2014

There was also an associated effort called the Trusted Intermediary Global Accessible Resources (TIGAR) project, to ease the exchange of accessible book files between libraries for the blind and print disabled. My biggest argument was the “library with holes” problem. The view of the World Blind Union was that the rightsholders (i.e.,

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Accessibility License Copyright Library 247

Beneblog: Technology Meets Society

APRIL 24, 2018

As the prototypical technology social enterprise, Benetech became one of the first organizations using technology to solve social problems rather than seeking to make maximum financial returns. What if we could scan once, proofread the resulting scan, and share that ebook with tens of thousands of eager readers?

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Mentoring Copyright Law Photography 167

Beneblog: Technology Meets Society

JANUARY 17, 2014

It also underscores just how critical a balanced copyright law is for technology innovation. As a different kind of Silicon Valley tech company—a nonprofit with a pure focus on social good—our goal is to see that the best of technology gets applied to social needs left unaddressed by for-profit businesses. In the U.S.,

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Copyright Law Accessibility Library 196

Beneblog: Technology Meets Society

AUGUST 16, 2011

This is becoming crucially important as the problem of delivering access to text is increasingly solved by the move to ebook publishing and solutions like our Bookshare library. But, it’s turned out to be one of the best surveys of assistive technology we’ve ever seen. We’ve also engaged in a major technical standards issue.

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Images Alternative Student Accessibility 194

Beneblog: Technology Meets Society

AUGUST 10, 2010

Footnote: NLS stands for the National Library Service for the Blind and Physically Handicapped, part of the U.S. Library of Congress and the nation's number one provider of books for blind people. They also operate Web Braille, an online Braille ebook service with roughly ten thousand titles.

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Library eBook Global National 156

Beneblog: Technology Meets Society

AUGUST 7, 2013

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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Copyright Law United States Library 158

Beneblog: Technology Meets Society

FEBRUARY 4, 2013

The Year That Was and the New Year Ahead Guest Beneblog by Betsy Beaumon, Benetech's VP and General Manager of the Literacy Program 2012 was a year of titanic shifts in the fields of consumer technology, education, and publishing, along with the requisite challenges brought about by such rapid change. Thanks again!

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Literacy Program United Arab Emirates Student 166

Beneblog: Technology Meets Society

SEPTEMBER 25, 2013

However, the time has come when we need a really smart attorney to join Benetech and help us navigate the intersection of technology and social good. The DMCA 1201 ruling on ebook access through DRM circumvention was clearly aimed at us: should we take up the challenge? No, we’re not being sued (and we want to keep it that way).

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United States Library Copyright License 134

Beneblog: Technology Meets Society

MARCH 10, 2014

This reality changed when both Kevin and Sophia learned about the accessible online library Bookshare , an initiative of Silicon Valley technology nonprofit Benetech. With its rapidly growing collection of over 225,000 (and counting) accessible ebooks, Bookshare is the world’s largest library of its kind.

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Data Classroom Measure Accessibility 168

Tech Soup

NOVEMBER 14, 2013

As we hurtle toward the end of 2013, it’s time for an update of nonprofit technology trends and news! If you’re a nonprofit news junkie, have a look at all our Nonprofit Technology News pieces from this past year. TechSoup Technologies for Good. Hacker Helper is all about not reinventing the technology wheel.

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News Technology Cancer Map 52

Beneblog: Technology Meets Society

DECEMBER 17, 2015

As the nonprofit operator of Bookshare ,the world’s largest online library for people who are blind, visually impaired, dyslexic, or have a physical disability that prevents them from reading books, Benetech strongly recommends the ratification of the Marrakesh Treaty. . · It is politically popular.

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Copyright Law Library eBook 100

Beneblog: Technology Meets Society

FEBRUARY 18, 2013

For example, one proposed change to the Treaty draft would make it the responsibility of an exporting library to need to know details about the publishing status of a book in another country before we could fill a request from a bona fide person with a print disability from that country. For what am I advocating?

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Copyright India Library United States 158

Beneblog: Technology Meets Society

DECEMBER 16, 2014

My personal goal is to channel the aspirations of the technology community to do more social good. More and more of my time is spent around both raising money and raising awareness of how much more could be done with technology to increase social impact. Are you excited about technology benefiting the world?

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Open Source Africa Zimbabwe Malawi 183

Beneblog: Technology Meets Society

NOVEMBER 26, 2014

Accessible ebooks and Bookshare have helped sixth grader Kevin Leong overcome his reading challenges. The good news is that major changes in technology are reforming education. The Bookshare library is made possible by a copyright exception: Section 121 of the United States Copyright Act, also known as the Chafee Amendment.

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eBook Accessibility United States Student 203

Beneblog: Technology Meets Society

OCTOBER 20, 2015

Bookshare is our large digital library for students with disabilities such as blindness or dyslexia. We use digital ebooks at Bookshare’s core, which can easily be turned into braille, large print or digital audio (using synthetic speech technology). and we needed more help.

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Kenya Social Student India 100

Beneblog: Technology Meets Society

OCTOBER 8, 2008

Not only do they produce Braille in quantity, but the Press is also developing affordable technology for blind people such as screenreaders and talking ebook players. We also got to visit (on the same campus), the Braille library, which was full of thousands of volumes of Braille.

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China Press eBook Library 113