Publishers
We work with publishers to provide their accessible files through RNIB Bookshare for use by learners with a print disability at all educational levels; early years through to higher education. We also work closely with The Publishers Association to promote the benefits of RNIB Bookshare to publishers and encourage engagement on the accessibility agenda. We currently have over 1000 publishers and their imprints working with us, some of whom have taken the step to provide a feed and backlist. This means that books are immediately available to learners with a print disability.
"For a publisher of our size it's fantastic to be able to make titles available in this way (through an RNIB Bookshare feed). It's also incredibly timely, as we are about to publish a book for a school and they requested for us to make the print larger on the page of one student with a visual impairment. Now, rather than making their contribution stand out as different, we can offer them the ability to read the whole book easily. The Head Teacher was very excited to hear this."
How publishers support us:
- Supply digital files to us when they become available to the general public, providing equal and timely access for people with print disabilities.
- Supply back catalogues of their digital files, making their books immediately accessible on our website to qualifiying members and reducing the need to process individual book requests.
- Provide high quality digital files, ensuring readers have an excellent reading experience.
- Provide digital files in formats that can be easily converted into accessible versions.
Benefits for publishers:
- We provide a direct request service for books not yet on the site - offering a faster, more streamlined service for both publishers and end users.
- The opportunity to meet corporate social responsibility objectives, while reducing the time and costs of providing accessible files and gaining additional marketing opportunities to reach educators.
- We have thousands of organisational members and reach over 28.5 per cent of UK schools.
"RNIB Bookshare UK education collection is a great idea; I will definitely be directing more people to it as accessible book requests come in."