Hachette Book Group Partners with Bookshare

Partnership Makes Thousands of Books Available to People with Print Disabilities

Bookshare and Hachette Book Group (HBG) announced today that they have entered into a partnership to provide digital books for Bookshare’s accessible online library for people with print disabilities. This partnership has two components that break new ground in the publishing industry. First, Hachette has agreed to donate digital files for all 1,700 currently digitized frontlist and backlist titles. Secondly, Hachette will refer all customer service requests for accessible books to Bookshare for fulfillment.

“We are proud to partner with Bookshare to help the print disabled community to acquire and read the authors and content that the Hachette Book Group edits and distributes,” said Maja Thomas, SVP Hachette Book Group Audio and Digital Publishing. “Through this partnership, we will be able to support a community in need by giving access to books and content in an efficient and timely manner.”

Bookshare believes that people with print disabilities deserve the same ease of access to books and periodicals that people without disabilities enjoy. The Bookshare library provides legal access to more than 43,000 books and 150 periodicals that are converted to Braille, large print or synthetic speech. Thanks to Bookshare, a person with a print disability can read a newspaper the same day it hits the newsstand or download a best-selling book simultaneously with its release.

“Hachette is one of our nation’s most distinguished publishers and is at the forefront of digital publishing,” said Jim Fruchterman, CEO of Benetech®, the nonprofit organization that operates the Bookshare library. “Hachette is leading the industry in its recognition of a social need through its support of equal access to books. Our highly valued partnership with Hachette is a significant milestone for our 47,000 members.”

Fewer than five percent of the books needed by people with print disabilities are currently available in accessible formats. An award from the U.S. Department of Education’s Office of Special Education Programs (OSEP) allows Bookshare to expand its collection through publisher partnerships and to grow the number of users who have access to the service. The award also provides free access to qualified students of any age.

Bookshare members download books, textbooks and newspapers in files protected by its Digital Rights Management system to ensure the security of publishers’ copyrights. Members read the texts using adaptive technology, such as software that reads the book aloud (text-to-speech) or converts the text to an enlarged font, or hardware devices that allow the book to be read on refreshable Braille displays. Members can also print digital books as embossed Braille.

Bookshare’s conversion and distribution of accessible books from publishers’ digital files significantly reduces the time and expense required by publishers to provide books in accessible formats for people with print disabilities.

In 2008, Bookshare was completely rebuilt with state-of-the-art web technology to make it significantly easier for people with print disabilities to access the books they want and need. The new design implements many of the current best practices for website accessibility and simplifies the process of reading digital texts.

About Bookshare

Bookshare http://www.bookshare.org/ is the world’s largest accessible online library for people with print disabilities. The Bookshare library is operated by Benetech https://benetech.org, a Palo Alto, CA-based nonprofit technology development organization. People with print disabilities include readers who are blind or have low vision, learning disabilities or a mobility impairment that prevents them from reading a traditional printed book. You can view video profiles of Bookshare student members Alex Clark athttp://www.youtube.com/watch?v=SwSwzeBCbq8 and Steffon Middleton athttp://www.youtube.com/watch?v=ho-y-5qzWa0.

About Hachette

Hachette Book Group is a leading trade publisher based in New York and a division of Hachette Livre, the second-largest publisher in the world. Hachette Book Group’s product lines include adult, illustrated, religious, children’s and audio books under the Little, Brown and Company, Little Brown Books for Young Readers, Grand Central Publishing, FaithWords, Center Street, Orbit, Yen Press and Hachette Book Group Digital Media imprints.