[NFB_of_Georgia] [Nfbnet-master-list] HathiTrust at U-M, NFB to Make 14M+ Books Accessible to Blind and Print-Disabled Users

[Beverly]

FOR IMMEDIATE RELEASE
CONTACT: 
Chris Danielsen
Director of Public Relations
National Federation of the Blind
(410) 659-9314, extension 2330
(410) 262-1281 (Cell)
cdanielsen at nfb.org


HathiTrust at U-M, NFB to Make 14M+ Books Accessible to Blind and Print-Disabled Users


 

Ann Arbor, Michigan (June 29, 2016): More than fourteen million digital books will soon be made available to blind and print-disabled users, thanks to a new collaboration involving the National Federation of the Blind (NFB) and the HathiTrust Digital Library, a digital repository hosted at the University of Michigan.

 

When launched, the program will dramatically increase the availability of books for users who are blind or print-disabled. According to the NFB, currently less than five percent of all published works are estimated to be available to the blind, most of which are popular titles.

 

NFB President Mark Riccobono says the effort will be an important advancement that will specifically benefit print-disabled students and scholars within the academic community.

 

"While most barriers that blind people face are artificial ones created by low expectations, access to the printed word has historically been a great challenge," he said. "This collaboration will, for the first time, make millions of books available to blind readers across the nation, giving us access to more books in a single repository than we have ever had. The significance of this development cannot be overstated, and we are delighted to work with HathiTrust to transform this dream into reality."

 

Founded in 2008, HathiTrust is a digital preservation repository with more than one hundred institutional academic and research partners that is housed at U-M. Their online archive, a major portion of which was scanned by Google, currently contains millions of digitized titles in different languages from libraries around the world. Users can search not only by title, author or subject matter, but also via page-by-page content within a book.

 

"Supporting print-disabled users has been a focus of HathiTrust since the very beginning, and we have long provided students at HathiTrust member schools with access to our collection" said Mike Furlough, executive director of HathiTrust. "The collaboration with NFB is an important turning point, because we are now striving to help non-academic print-disabled users for the first time." 

 

Over the coming year, NFB and HathiTrust will collaborate to plan and implement these services. User eligibility will be determined by criteria used by the National Library Service for the Blind and Physically Handicapped and similar services authorized under US law.  

 

According to Furlough, HathiTrust currently provides a similar service to qualified print-disabled students at its member schools. The new program will expand this service to allow similarly qualified users not affiliated with HathiTrust schools access to full-text works in the HathiTrust collection.

 

NFB and HathiTrust, like the federally operated National Library Service, will lawfully and securely make books available to qualified people in the U.S. who have print disabilities.

 

HathiTrust


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About the National Federation of the Blind

The National Federation of the Blind knows that blindness is not the characteristic that defines you or your future. Every day we raise the expectations of blind people, because low expectations create obstacles between blind people and our dreams. You can live the life you want; blindness is not what holds you back.
National Federation of the Blind
200 East Wells Street
at Jernigan Place
Baltimore, MD 21230
United States
(410) 659-9314 


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