From the Editor: Many of us remember the emptiness we felt when hearing about a new book and knowing it would be many months or even years before we got a chance to read it. We remember all too well that books not enjoying popular appeal would likely never appear in a form we could easily read unless we worked hard to make it so. Then came along a nonprofit service called Bookshare, one made possible by the 1996 amendments to the copyright act that we referred to as the Chafee Amendments and supported vigorously. All of a sudden, a book that you scanned could be made available to me, and the book I scanned could be made available to you and hundreds of others. At last my public library actually belongs to me, and it offered more than the pleasant smell of books. The cohort of volunteers who signed up to scan for Bookshare were a part of something wonderful and transformative.
For this reason and many others, the National Federation of the Blind has always been a part of celebrating the good work of Bookshare and helping in its funding when we can. In recognition of this support, the corporation that Bookshare now falls under wrote to thank us. Here is the correspondence:
Dear Anil,
Benetech is thrilled to announce that the Department of Education, Office of Special Education Programs, has awarded Benetech’s Bookshare platform another five years of funding to support the literacy and education needs of students with disabilities in the US. We could not have achieved this award without your enthusiastic support.
Your letter helped us demonstrate the impact that having access to accessible educational materials has on students with learning differences and visual and physical impairments that create barriers to reading.
The entire Benetech staff wanted to personally thank you for your continued support of our program and provide you with a link to the announcement so you can learn more about the work we are doing to make education equitable. Feel free to share this news that you helped make possible with your network.
As we prepare to execute against our plan for this critical work, we look forward to collaborating with you and appreciate your on-going support to make inclusive, equitable education a priority in all learning environments.
Kind regards,
Lisa Wadors Verne
VP Programs
Here is the letter we wrote to help Benetech acquire the grant:
Dear Dr. Wadors Verne:
On behalf of the National Federation of the Blind (NFB), I am pleased to provide this letter in support of Benetech’s grant application to the US Department of Education to ensure that accessible instructional materials are available to children with disabilities in a timely manner, and that the use of these materials is supported across various age groups, formats, and learning environments.
The National Federation of the Blind is the most transformative membership and advocacy organization of blind people in the United States, and as such, represents the end beneficiaries of any work with nonvisual access technology. In 1990, the NFB opened the International Braille and Technology Center for the Blind (IBTC), the leading evaluation and training center on technology for the blind in the world—housing a comprehensive collection of speech and Braille technology worth over $2.5 million. In January 2004, the organization opened the National Federation of the Blind Jernigan Institute, the first and only research and training facility developed and directed by the blind, for the blind. The institute leads the quest to understand the real problems of blindness and to develop innovative education, technologies, products, and services that help the world’s blind to achieve independence. The Jernigan Institute has expanded the expertise and educational outreach of the IBTC, including assisting with the development and improvement of new technological innovations.
We have been supporters of Benetech’s education work through Bookshare and DIAGRAM, and we share their commitment to creating and supporting accessible content for individuals with disabilities. Bookshare has been and remains an essential tool for many blind students and professionals to access a diverse array of information vital to their education and careers. Benetech’s leadership is evident not only in leveraging technology for services and communication, but also in building a broad community of technologists, educators, researchers, policy makers, parents, publishers, and other stakeholders. Benetech has proven itself to be an innovator in the field of accessible educational materials through your work in the successful BUILD (Benetech Unlocks Individualized Learning Delivery) Center, which has served over eight hundred thousand students and includes over one million accessible eBooks. We are confident in your ability to scale up large national projects and to deliver upon them in a far-reaching, long-lasting manner. We are excited about Benetech’s plan to address the challenges inherent in ensuring the accessibility of educational materials while continuing to develop innovations to meet the needs of students with disabilities over the next five years.
Through your proposal, you will further advance Bookshare, the industry-leading technology used to produce and distribute accessible books, expand your work with the publishing ecosystem by adding new partners—helping many to update their workflows to become globally certified accessible—and increase the awareness of accessible materials through training and outreach with a focus on diverse and underserved communities, particularly as they recover from the missed learning caused by the pandemic. We strongly support Benetech’s proposal and look forward to working with you to make this program a success.