Bookshare International: Accessibility for All, Regardless of Where You Live

Here in the United States, our Bookshare initiative is having a tremendous impact, especially on the lives of students. We now provide over 200,000 accessible books to more than a quarter-million people who are blind, dyslexic or have other print disabilities. And yet, while we’ve made significant progress in the U.S., we’ve only scratched the surface of meeting the global need. The sad truth is that there are millions of people with print disabilities around the world that continue to be left behind.

On the Future of Braille: Thoughts by Radical Braille Advocates

This piece originally appeared as a guest post on Jim Fruchterman’s Blog. I recently had the honor to speak at the first-ever Braille Summit, hosted on June 19-21, 2013 by the National Library Service for the Blind and Physically Handicapped (NLS) and Perkins School for the Blind. With the goal of promoting braille literacy, this […]

Benetech Closing Statement on the Marrakech Treaty

This is an excellent Treaty. The Benetech team is delighted by its adoption today. We have the technology, we have the content, and now we have the legal framework to make it possible for every person with a print disability on the planet to get access to the books they need for education, employment and social inclusion!

Benetech’s Statement to the Treaty Delegates in Marrakech

We have the technology today to end the book famine: we need your treaty to make it real! We look forward to a simple, straightforward and usable treaty that makes it possible for American blind people to have access to the cultural richness of all other languages and countries and for us to serve all of our hundreds of thousands of books to the blind of the world. Help us see that people with disabilities get the access they need for education, employment and full social inclusion!

Wired Magazine Quotes Benetech in Coverage of “Treaty for the Blind”

Wired Magazine has quoted our CEO, Jim Fruchterman, in an about the negotiations for an international treaty to make books more accessible to people who are blind or have other print disabilities. Entitled “Obama Stops Championing Treaty That Gives the Blind Better Access to E-Books,” the article, written by David Kravets, outlines how lobbying by Hollywood and dozens of the world’s largest corporations may subvert the treaty, which has been years in the making.