Bookshare offers e-books for the disabled courtesy of the US Government. You register for the service(which includes providing proof of disability), pay a subscription $70 (about £45) in the first year) and then all books are free. The catalogue includes old classics, but also includes modern books and children’s books. There are magazines and newspapers – but they are US titles like New York Times or even the Anchorage Daily News.
The books are in formats suitable for displaying in large fonts sizes, braille readers or as audible books. They can be used on pcs, Macs, Braille readers.
Positive-points
- You can search the Bookshare catalogue for free. If you have specific interests, such as student books, then you can check out what is available before you buy a subscription.
- Many sites have free e-books (e.g. Project Gutenburg
and Google books) but the free books are usually texts that are out of copyright (more than around 70 years old). This could give you a lifetime of quality reads.....but it’s no good if you want Harry Potter or a textbook on economics. Bookshare has a fantastic list of modern books. For children there is Harry Potter, Twilight, Horrid Henry, Beatrix Potter, Gruffalo, Warhorse, Christopher Paolini and Dr Seuss. For adults I found Maeve Binchy, Patricia Cornwell, Colin Dexter, computing books, Julian Barnes, Gabriel Garcia Marquez, Margaret Attwood and Kate Atkinson. - If you are a book worm then $70 is a bargain.
- Your subscription also includes free software for pc or Mac to read the books.
Negative-points
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There were some obvious gaps in the catalogue – no Delia Smith and only one Jamie Oliver (but there were lots of other cookery books). No PD James - I call that a BIG disaster and sometimes the most recent titles have not made it in.
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The files are in DAISY format or BRF which were invented before the consumer market in e-books took off so if you want to read the books on a mobile device it’s a bit more complicated (see below)
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Not all disabled people can register for Bookshare because of the copyright laws covering the service. You have to be legally blind; be learning disabled, typically with a specific language learning impediment; or physically disabled where the disability makes it difficult to read standard print.
Formats and readers
- Bookshare provides the following formats:
- DAISY (Digital Accessible Information System) - Some children’s books include pictures – if the book has 2 possible DAISY downloads then select the DAISY file rather than DAISY text link to get the pictures.
- BRF (Braille Refreshable Format) - used with Braille reading devices and Braille printers
- Bookshare also includes free software for pcs and Macs which read these files
- Read:outLoud Verson 6 Bookshare Edition by Don Johnston (pc and Mac)
- Victor reader Soft Bookshare Edition by HumanWare (pc only)
- AMIS DAISY Playback Software (pc only)
- Acapels TTS Voices by Acapela Group (pc only) - a selection of voices so you do not have to listen to Pride and Prejudice read in an American acccent
If you want to be mobile then it gets more difficult.
For iPad, iPhone or iPod Touch you will have to buy Read2Go
from the Apple App Store for $20 (currently about £12).For mobile phone you will need to buy Talks and Zooms Premium Talks and Zooms Premium
at an eye watering £150.If you want the books on a Kindle we think you should be able to do it but give us a ring at the Aidis Helpdesk (0808 800 0009) since it takes some messing about.
Alternatives to Bookshare
You can download free software to read Kindle books on your pc..... so you do not have to pay £85 pounds for the Kindle device. (Download pc Kindle reader
) This will let you read all their out of copyright catalogue for free and you have a full range of books to buy at about 65% of the cost of buying the paper book. So if you want to be sure of the widest choice of books or if you only want the occasional modern book this may be for you.Project Gutenberg offers over 36,000 free ebooks to download to your PC, Kindle, Android, iOS or other portable device,( download reader) The books are good quality since they are digitised and diligently proof read with the help of thousands of volunteers. It offers lots of different formats so you should be able to find something that will work with your Kindle, phone or pc.
Local libraries
I have not ventured into my library for years but when I looked on-line they offer a range of services to download books in easily read formats like PDF, MP3 and WAV files. So it might be worth checking out your local service.
RNIB
Still provide their talking book service for an annual subscription of £82 which includes a reader.
Audiobooks
A free app for the i-phone and i-pad that enables you to download audiobooks for free. The books are provided by volunteer readers so the quality is variable and it only includes out of copyright items so its not as good at it appears at first – but it’s free.
