[Dtb-talk] If you are a student, BookShare is now free

[Pratik Patel]

The figure of 32 million is in question and may be lower.  It's a
possibility that it was a typo.  Inquiries are pending.
-----Original Message-----
From: dtb-talk-bounces at nfbnet.org [mailto:dtb-talk-bounces at nfbnet.org] On
Behalf Of Aaron Cannon
Sent: Monday, October 01, 2007 5:25 PM
To: NFB Talk Mailing List
Cc: National Association of Blind Students mailing list; Discussion of
Digital Talking Books
Subject: [Dtb-talk] If you are a student, BookShare is now free

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This was just posted to the bookshare.org site:

We're happy to share incredible news, which will transform Bookshare.org. On
Friday, the Office of Special Education Programs of the U.S. federal
Department of Education made a major five-year award of $32 million to
Bookshare.org. This will further the objectives of the Individuals with
Disabilities Education Act (IDEA), by supplying high quality textbooks and
educational materials to students with special needs.

This funding is to fully support all schools and students with qualifying
print disabilities in the United States, K-12 and post-secondary, with
access to the entire Bookshare.org collection of accessible electronic books
and to software for reading those books. As of October 1, 2007, we will
cease charging these schools and students anything to join Bookshare.org. We
also expect to add over 100,000 new educational titles in high quality DAISY
and Braille formats over the next five years, getting students the terrific
quality textbooks they need for academic success!


And, from an email:

Forwarded from Jim Fruchterman:

I'm happy to share incredible news, which will transform Bookshare.org. On
Friday, the Office of Special Education Programs of the U.S. federal
Department of Education made a major five-year award of $32 million to
Bookshare.org.

This funding is to fully support all schools and students with qualifying
print disabilities in the United States, K-12 and post-secondary, with
access to the entire Bookshare.org collection of accessible electronic books
and to software for reading those books.  As of October 1, 2007, we will
cease charging these schools and students anything to join Bookshare.org as
members.

In this initial news flash, I can't begin to share with you all of our plans
for Bookshare.org now with this funding.  But, we are planning on adding
more than 100,000 new educational books and materials to our existing
collection of over 34,000 titles.  We are going to reach out to every
student, every family with a disabled student, and every school in the U.S.
to offer them the chance to join the Bookshare.org community and transform
the practice of making books accessible.  We are going to coordinate with
schools and publishers to deliver the best quality content possible and
lower their costs in meeting
our shared obligations to serve every student with a disability in the
nation.  We expect to provide millions of books to students through this new
program over the next five years, at a tenth or less of the historical cost
of providing these services.

And, we expect our improvements to serve all of these students will make
Bookshare.org better for all of our Bookshare.org users. Bookshare.org's
track record of being highly responsive to our members will be enhanced with
significant funding to implement major improvements to our content and
services.

Our volunteer community is an essential part of what made this grant
possible, and you are a crucial part to making this a success in the future.
Your
commitment to our shared vision of better access to information is core to
where we are heading.

We want to make equal access to educational materials for disabled students
a reality!

Jim

Jim Fruchterman

President and CEO



- --
Skype: cannona
MSN/Windows Messenger: cannona at hotmail.com (don't send email to the hotmail
address.)

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