Tech Matters: Using tech for positive social change

Bookshare , Benetech's online library for people who are blind or otherwise print-disabled, is fortunate to have a variety of summer interns and volunteers working in our Palo Alto office this year. Our main focus has been our text book image description project . Our summer volunteers write text book image descriptions, review and revise descriptions, provide technical assistance, and proofread children’s books with new image descriptions. We’re especially grateful for the participation of two blind Bookshare members, who have provided input on how to write the best image descriptions. Volunteers have also helped us prepare for the ACB and NFB summer conferences, and contributed to our marketing, collection development, and international departments. We are sincerely grateful to our enthusiastic and dedicated group of volunteers. Here is more about each one in their own words! Nilofer Chollampat I’m a Natural Science major at U.C. Davis with minors in Education and...

Every week our Bookshare team hears from our Members. I am thrilled to get copied on these emails: it reminds me of why we do here at Benetech! I appreciate that so many of our Members take the time to write and thank our team. Changes often inspire Members to write and it is so helpful to hear about what works (and what doesn't work so we can fix it). The recent upgrades in our Bookshare site and service such as the new audio formats, images, and image descriptions motivated several Members to share their thoughts, and we sought their permission to share those thoughts with you! For example, new Member Annette Moore wrote: the fact that Bookshare offers their books in mp3 format is why I decided to become a Member. I don't have a VR Stream or a Booksense; I just use the NLS digital talking book player. I do have to say the Bookshare TTS voice for the mp3 format is great! I love Christian fiction, and while NLS does have some in that particular genre, Bookshare has so m...