[nabs-l] accessible ebooks for school

Wed Jan 9 16:31:07 UTC 2013

Hi Ashley,

I don't think you could.  Bookshare relies on volunteers to scan,
edit, and upload a lot of their book files.  However, you could just
search the ISBN like Chris talked about and if they have the one you
want then you should be fine.  And even if the exact copy isn't there,
getting a sighted person to go through a print copy of the book with
you just to find the page numbers you need for citations isn't a big
deal.  I've done it and as long as you can verbally steer them where
you want them to go to get the page number it only takes a few
minutes.

On 1/8/13, Ashley Bramlett <bookwormahb at earthlink.net> wrote:
> Hi,
> Having same page numbers is important for papers. If I signed up for
> bookshare, could I ask them if the page numbers matched the print copy?
> I'd want an exact match if at all possible.
>
> Ashley
>
> -----Original Message-----
> From: Josh Gregory
> Sent: Monday, January 07, 2013 12:24 AM
> To: National Association of Blind Students mailing list
> Subject: Re: [nabs-l] accessible ebooks for school
>
> The issue that I found with Bookshare is that some of the print page numbers
> are not always correct in certain books… So you really have to know what
> you're downloading before you download it.
>
> Sent from my iPhone
>
> On Jan 7, 2013, at 12:18 AM, Kaiti Shelton <crazy4clarinet104 at gmail.com>
> wrote:
>
>> Ashley,
>>
>> Have you checked out Bookshare?  Over the past few years they've
>> really taken an initiative in getting textbooks uploaded to the site.
>> They're not always there, but it's a great place to check.  Even if
>> you can't find your textbooks exactly, I've used them for school when
>> teachers required at least one book source and citation for a paper,
>> or something scholarly to refer back to.  You can also request a book
>> to be added to the collection.  They also have New York Times
>> Best-Sellers, popular titles and series, and even some daily
>> newspapers.  Membership is free for students as long as you have proof
>> of disability and are attending a recognized K-12 school, or
>> college/university.  Non-students only have to pay 50 dollars a year
>> for unlimitted access to the library.  Books are available in brf,
>> daisy, mp3, and I believe one other format.
>>
>> Although we can't use Kindles I really like my BookSense for reading
>> books.  From what I understand it does basically what a kindle does
>> and can announce the pages, move by line, paragraph, page, etc through
>> book documents, and has optional male or female voices for reading.
>> It also comes with a document reading mode so you can use it to
>> quickly have documents in audible format, a recording feature for
>> voice memos, and space to store other audio files.  The book and audio
>> reading sections of the device recognize several file formats
>> including brf, txt, doc, and rtf, and I also believe the kwb although
>> it's been a while since I've had a BrailleNote so don't quote me on
>> that last one.  There are also separate sections set up for NFB
>> Newsline, NLS, Bookshare, and personal documents.
>>
>> On 1/6/13, Ashley Bramlett <bookwormahb at earthlink.net> wrote:
>>> Hi all,
>>>
>>> I know we often get  books from our disability support service, dss,
>>> office.
>>> But, since they are slow in responding, I try to do what I can alone; for
>>> instance, I use my own learning ally account as opposed to going through
>>> them.
>>>
>>> I know more and more books are available via electronic text for all
>>> students.
>>> I was wanting to know about this option.
>>> I often use the old fashioned way with readers since I can learn best
>>> with a
>>> human voice. With a reader, I can get them to spell words, describe the
>>> figures, and tell me what is bold or italics. I like to know this since
>>> bold
>>> or italics mean vocab or important terms.
>>>
>>> I like to know all options though.
>>> What books have you read electronically? From where? Which format are
>>> they
>>> in and what device or devices do you use to read them? We all know the
>>> standard ebook readers are not accessible such as Kindle, SonyReader, and
>>> Nook.
>>>
>>> I read on here that Course Smart texts became accessible in 2010. Can
>>> anyone
>>> explain how this service works? Do you rent or buy the ebook? Does the
>>> ebook
>>> have all pages and page numbers in it just as a print copy would?
>>> Is epub accessible?
>>>
>>> Thanks.
>>>
>>> Ashley
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>>
>>
>> --
>> Kaiti
>>
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-- 
Kaiti