Here are just some of the letters Bookshare.org has received over the years.

 

"October 6, 2004, was a very exciting day for me because my membership for bookshare.org received final approval.  Since that day I have had a never-ending treasure trove of both pleasure reading and informative reading from which to choose for immediate download.  The name of the organization says it all — Bookshare.org, the place where volunteers scan and share!  Long live bookshare.org and the Benetech Initiative!!!"

Sue Stevens

"I can't tell you how many people I've talked to over the past year about the way in which the nexus of Bookshare.org and Newsline has benefited the quality of my life.  I had dinner just last night in Berkeley with a blind friend to whom I demonstrated the Book Courier onto which I had downloaded the NY Times along with a host of other Bookshare.org titles.  I told him how every morning I download the Times as I head off to work on the BART.  My friend was totally sold and was meeting with someone today to get a Book Courier and then he was going to sign up for Bookshare.org right away."

Brian Miller

"This isn't a request, but a commendation for the great job you did with Harry Potter And The Half-Blood Prince.  Not only was it available the same day as the print copy, but the scanned copy was almost error free.  I would have sent this much sooner, but I was reading the book — as slowly as possible to make it last — but reading it all the same.  Wonderful job!"

Rebecca Lineberger

"For years I've feared I'd run out of good Braille books to read.   Bookshare.org has put that fear to rest. The variety of books open to me now is beyond my grandest hopes. I'll be an avid reader of Bookshare.org selections and will support and promote it energetically."

Cindy Deren

"For most students, the freshman year of college is a time for discovering intellectual strength, getting behind a cause or two, and exchanging rapid-fire theories on life, the universe and everything at 3 AM when you should be writing the paper that’s due at 9. 

"As a blind freshman, I managed to do all those things, but I always came up against one immense barrier: I couldn’t just pick up a book and read it.  I got my textbooks on tape, and read them too, when the narrator didn’t put me to sleep.  I took pathetic notes; you can’t write in a tape’s margins.  I developed a trademark nod-and-smile for anyone who tried to recommend a book to me, because with my friends reading such a variety of interesting things, and the Library of Congress only producing a couple hundred Braille books a year, chances were I couldn’t get my hands on a recommendation.   Once in a while, if I’d rather die than miss out on reading something, I’d scan it into electronic form myself: what a rush, what a feeling of freedom, but only when I found the time.

"Those days are gone.  For $50 a year I can access over 20.000 books, instantly.  I can find out what Foucault thought about American prisons; how the Simpsons illustrate concepts in philosophy; or, if I download one of the fifty or so papers on Bookshare.org, exactly what’s going on in the world today.  Gone is the de facto censorship that resulted from publishers of texts in alternative formats trying to cater to their largest demographic.  Since any user can contribute a scanned book to the site, it takes just one person to add a book to the collection.  This means a dizzying array of material for people in highly specialized academic and technical fields, books for leisure readers with every fictional or nonfictional taste, and support and information for people as diverse as the average campus: a user can easily find literature relevant to his or her religious, political, ethnic and sexual identity, as well as definitive collections on disability, career-building, and life skills.

"A Bookshare.org text is a book without barriers in more than one way.  It can be read in large print, with synthesized speech, or in refreshable or embossed Braille. (Bookshare.org partners with Braille Institute to provide, at cost, Braille hard copies of books for subscribers who need them).  It can be browsed, bookmarked, and searched with ease; and, if paired with a program like JAWS or Kurzweil, easily lends itself to annotation and outlining. 

"Bookshare.org builds citizenship in two fundamental ways.  It transforms subscribers from passive beneficiaries into instant volunteers: anyone can help by submitting or proofreading books.  And Bookshare puts at the disposal of its subscribers the information they need to understand and succeed in their classes, their community, and their world.  Bookshare.org has made reading more possible and pleasurable for me, and has allowed me to use more of my time at college for learning, and less for the busy-work of tracking down and finding ways to access printed resources."

Chancey Fleet

"I was told that I didn't like to read when I was a kid, but that was totally untrue.  I was just given boring books all the time, so of course I didn't have that much desire to read them.  If I had been given something interesting to read I would have learned much faster and been much happier.

"By submitting children's books to Bookshare.org we are encouraging learning, helping kids to succeed in school, helping kids to love reading, and ultimately increasing their intelligence…"

Sarah Van Oosterwijck

"I would have been in paradise if Bookshare.org had existed when I was little. I was a junior reading fiend!"

Kellie

"You didn't even have to grow up in the ‘60s to know what it's like to never have enough to read. I was a child of the ‘80s, born in late ‘79, but I still had not nearly enough to read. In middle school, I was tested as having a college reading level, so I was thoroughly peeved at the library only sending me kiddie books! *smile* I liked them, but I needed something more challenging sometimes. Now, I can't even begin to tell you...well, hang on...152MB of books from Bookshare.org that I haven't read."

Julie Morales

"Thanks for the financial books. This list has also affected me financially.  I have read several books about money and investing including some I have validated.  They have been quite useful.  Am thinking of creating a bibliography of them though they can pretty much be found in the business section of the site.  I also use Bookshare.org to learn more about using Windows and to improve my garden."

E. Aldworth

"I find that in spite of its ubiquity, I am still amazed by technology. Sometimes we talk about the good old days.  Some things were truly better then, but not things involving technology.

"I find myself reflecting on being in grade and high school during the ‘50s and ‘60s and finding reading material difficult to find.  We had a small Braille library at the school which I attended.  By the time I was in fourth grade, I had read most of the books.  We did get a few more but never enough.

"I was introduced to the Braille and talking book programs during various times during those years.  I would send lists of books I wanted in Braille and talking book to my regional library 135 miles away.  I waited and waited.  I got a few books but not most of them.  Service did get better as I got older.  When I complained, I was sometimes told that my expectations were high.  Think of the statements I can now make that people would have scoffed at during the ‘60s.

"Someday, I will have access to a library in which they will send me books any time of the day or night.  They will send me the book, and it will arrive in seconds.  In a few cases, they will have a Braille book available on the same day that it comes out in print.  In fact, they will send me the whole New York Times, including the Sunday edition, on the same day as people are reading it print.

"Way to go, Bookshare!!!  Keep making the preposterous happen."

Rick Roderick

"Children and teen books, in accessible form, are especially important as instilling the love of reading both for pleasure and information is best done at a young age. And having good quality, both in content and scanning quality, will instill those values down the road.  A youngster who downloads a Bookshare.org book and sees them almost perfect in scanning quality will strive for the same when and if they do scanning themselves.  So, I am far more concerned that a Hardy Boys, Nancy Drew, Bailey Kids, Goose Bumps, Black Stallion, et al book is at near perfection than for a similar adult book.  So while some might argue that Bookshare.org's collection is somewhat lopsided with an overweighting of younger reader books, this will pay handsome dividends down the road for Bookshare.org..."

Mike Pietruk

"I grew up in a house that overflowed with printed books. We had bookcases in the living-room and the den; books were stacked on dressers and end-tables; piles of books were even tucked under beds. Because I was blind, however, this wealth of literature was largely off limits to me. Braille books — books I could read myself — were scarce, costly, and hard to come by. My parents were glad to read aloud to me when they could, but their time and energy were limited. I envied my sighted friends who could browse at the library or bookstore and select exactly the titles they wanted to take home. I hardly dared to dream that some day I might have the same freedom.

"My life was transformed in 1990 when I obtained an OCR scanner. This technology allowed me to create an electronic file from any print book I chose. I could access the electronic version via synthesized speech or a computer device with a Braille display. Suddenly I had the power to turn flat, meaningless pages into living stories, information, and ideas. I felt like the miller's daughter in "Rumpelstiltskin," discovering that she could spin straw into gold. Feverishly, by the dozens, I began to scan the books I wanted to read. For the first time in my life I was building a personal library. I knew that hundreds of other blind people were busy turning straw to gold as well. If only we could combine our growing collections of scanned books to create a library that would be open to blind and print-disabled readers all over the country.

"Now, at the dawn of a new millennium, Bookshare.org has opened the doors to the library of my dreams. Bookshare.org makes it possible for volunteers all over the United States to contribute scanned books, forming an ever-expanding library of electronic texts for blind and print-disabled readers. The collection is vastly diverse, a reflection of the richly varied needs and tastes of the blind and print-disabled population. Bookshare.org offerings range from romances and thrillers to literary fiction, from pop psychology to scholarly works on history, science, computers, and world affairs. Compared with most public or college libraries, Bookshare's collection is still relatively small, but it is growing all the time. If I find that one of my favorite authors is under-represented, or that a beloved novel is still missing, I know I can fill the gap myself. Each time I scan a book that I need or want, I have the satisfaction of sharing it with others as well.

"The relationship between Bookshare.org and its community of volunteers is unique. Most of us who are Bookshare.org volunteers are also subscribers, active users of the collection we are helping to build. We know we are working to create an invaluable resource for ourselves and for print-disabled readers of today and tomorrow. Contributing to Bookshare.org feels utterly empowering, and having access to this growing library, open year-round, day and night, is extraordinary.

"To everyone at Bookshare.org I send my heartfelt thanks. Thank you for believing in our dreams and making so much possible!"

Deborah Kent Stein