Digital

Bookshare is an online accessible digital library for print disabled readers.

They have .brf and DAISY files available for download. In 2007, they received a grant of $32 million from the US Government’s Office of Special Education Programs (OSEP) to make the service available for free to all print disabled students in the US.

Bookshare also has apps allowing people to listen to books on mobile devices. For questions about Bookshare, people can check the FAQ on the website or the contact us tool. If that doesn’t answer their questions, they can contact the eastern representative, Kristina Cohen, at KristinaK@benetech.org or (650) 644-3452. Bookshare also has webinars; check the website (http://www.bookshare.org/).

Start by searching the online library of Bookshare for digital text.

If you do not find the book at Bookshare, try searching the National Instructional Materials Access Library (NIMAC).

If the book is available at the NIMAC, follow the instructions below to request it from Bookshare.

Complete Bookshare’s online form at http://bookshare.org/contactUs.

Use the pull-down menu “My question is about” and select “NIMAC Textbooks and Other NIMAC Questions.” Be sure to include all of your contact information, as well as the book title, author, publisher, and ISBN. In approximately two weeks, Bookshare will send you an email indicating that the student-ready digital file is available for download from Bookshare’s online NIMAS collection.

If you do not find the book at the NIMAC, you can ask the book’s publisher if digital files are available. The publisher may be willing to send the files to the NIMAC or to your school.

Remember, to ensure that materials will be available when you need them, your district’s purchasing contracts with publishers should require the publisher to send NIMAS files to the NIMAC.

For more information, see the Department’s web site: http://www.doe.mass.edu/odl/assistive/nimas.html

*New from American printing House For the Blind

The APH File Repository is beginning to add the APH Large Print files to its collection. The files, saved as PDF documents, can be used on iPads or iPods, laptops, and various accessible devices. The same great features are available: 18 point font, colors and images eliminated from behind text materials, clearer images, single column formatting, page or key word searching, and more. All of these features will provide your students access to the identical large print format, but in a much smaller carrying case.

One important caveat: These digital files are to be used electronically and printing is not allowed.

Please e-mail Carrie Brasier, cbrasier@aimlibrary.org, if you seek a digital file of an APH Large print book. As this is a new service, we are still working on exact policy and procedure.