[Missouri-l] BT children's books on Bookshare

[peter altschul]

Bookshare Partnership Will Serve Visually Impaired Young Readers
PRESS RELEASE
via
www.PRweb.com
Bookshare to Offer Children's Books from Sharing-Books.com 
Partnership
Will Serve Visually Impaired Young Readers
Bookshare.org is the leading on-line library for the visually 
impaired.
Sharing-Books.com is a leading on-line publisher of new children 
books.
The two companies announce that the children books published by
sharing-books.com will be added to the Bookshare library for the 
benefit
of visually impaired children.
Vancouver, BC (PRWEB) May 5, 2009 -- Bookshare and Shared Books 
Ltd of
Vancouver BC are pleased to announce a partnership that will 
expand the
availability of children books in the Bookshare library.
Shared Books, which operates the Sharing-Books.com website, has 
agreed
to allow children's books published on Sharing-Books.com to be 
added to
the Bookshare collection.  This initiative will increase the 
number of
children's books accessible to readers with print disabilities 
and
provide an opportunity for authors published on Sharing-Books.com 
to
offer their works to a new group of valued readers.
Schools around the world have signed up their qualified students 
for
Bookshare and many parents have registered their children with
qualifying disabilities for individual Bookshare memberships.  
The number
of new Bookshare school and student members increased tenfold in 
2008.
More than 47,000 people with print disabilities now subscribe to 
the
Bookshare library.
This partnership will allow Bookshare to continue to expand its
collection of books for young readers who remain a critically 
important
group within our membership.  Sharing-Books.com is on the 
forefront of
providing these texts in a digital format.
"The children's books provided by Sharing-Books.com will be 
available to
Bookshare members worldwide," says Bookshare CEO Jim Fruchterman.  
"This
partnership will allow Bookshare to continue to expand its 
collection of
books for young readers who remain a critically important group 
within
our membership.  Sharing-Books.com is on the forefront of 
providing these
texts in a digital format."
"Having some personal experience with technology that serves the
visually impaired, I was thrilled to see our authors being able 
to
contribute content to Bookshare's impressive library," said 
Pierre
Lapointe, CEO of Shared Books.  Our team's enthusiasm for 
Bookshare is
unanimous.  We want more people to read more books.  Technology 
has an
important role to play in reaching all potential readers."
About Bookshare
Bookshare is operated by Benetech, a Palo Alto, CA-based 
non-profit
technology organization.
Bookshare offers people with print disabilities more than 47,000 
books
and 150 daily periodicals in accessible formats including 
Braille, large
print and synthetic speech.  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.  In 2007, Bookshare received a
$32 million five-year award from the U.S.  Department of 
Education's
Office of Special Education Programs (OSEP) to give all U.S.  
students
with qualifying print disabilities free access to the Bookshare 
library.
About Sharing-Books.com
Sharing-Books.com is an innovative business model combining 
private
enterprise and social goals.
Sharing-Books.com authors receive a third of the revenues of the 
company
as royalties.  Another third of Sharing-Books.com revenues are 
given to
Room to Read, a charity that equips developing nations with 
literacy
resources.  The company operates an ultra lean virtual business 
model
with the other third of its revenues.  Sharing-Books.com disrupts 
the
traditional publishing cycle by giving new authors and new books 
an
immediate publishing venue.  The Sharing-Books.com model 
identifies
promising books and characters for the paper publishing, gaming, 
movie,
and toy industries.
Contacts:
Ann Harrison
Benetech
415-637-5262
ann.h (at) benetech.org
Maggie Kerr-Southin
Sharing-Books.com
250-595-0136
Maggie (at) artemispr.com
###
____________________________________________________________
Compete with the big boys.  Click here to find products to 
benefit your business.
http://thirdpartyoffers.juno.com/TGL2141/fc/BLSrjpTI97vV4cB2l09Wa
LGqbRMGBr76SWCrodFL6LLJvDnpSzKyYaG474k/