[Athen] FW: [bksvol-discuss] Great news about Bookshare.org

[Baker, Nick]

Doesn't post-secondary include community colleges, four-year colleges
and universities?

 

Nick Baker
Assistive Technology Coordinator
nick.baker at umontana.edu
406-243-2234 (Voice/TTY)
406-243-2663 (Voice only)

Disability Services for Students
The University of Montana
EL 154
32 Campus Drive
Missoula, MT 59812

________________________________

From: athen-bounces at athenpro.org [mailto:athen-bounces at athenpro.org] On
Behalf Of Daryl Murphy
Sent: Tuesday, October 02, 2007 10:59 AM
To: Access Technologists in Higher Education Network
Subject: Re: [Athen] FW: [bksvol-discuss] Great news about Bookshare.org

 

No community colleges or 4 year institutions.   Still leaving us out.

 

From: athen-bounces at athenpro.org [mailto:athen-bounces at athenpro.org] On
Behalf Of Kelly Ford
Sent: Tuesday, October 02, 2007 9:36 AM
To: 'Access Technologists in Higher Education Network'
Subject: [Athen] FW: [bksvol-discuss] Great news about Bookshare.org

 

Apologies if this was posted here already.  I didn't see it on the list.

 

Kelly

 

________________________________

From: bksvol-discuss-bounce at freelists.org
[mailto:bksvol-discuss-bounce at freelists.org] On Behalf Of Lisa Friendly
Sent: Sunday, September 30, 2007 7:22 PM
To: bksvol-discuss at freelists.org; bookshare-discuss at freelists.org
Subject: [bksvol-discuss] Great news about Bookshare.org

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

Benetech

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