Overview

Welcome to lesson 2 of 15 in the Accessible Reading for Educators Course. In this lesson you will learn about Accessible Libraries and how your students can benefit from free access to over one million education titles in an accessible format.

Lesson Objectives

After studying this lesson, you will be able to:

• Identify the eligibility criteria for students to access accessible library resources.
• Describe the general steps a school, college or university must take to register with an Accessible Library.
• Demonstrate how to locate and select an appropriate Accessible Library for your region using the Dolphin Libraries List.
• Evaluate the benefits of independent student accounts for improving reading outcomes in students with print disabilities.

This lesson should take no more than 15 minutes to complete.

Watch - Today's landscape

Accessible Libraries

Historically, the provision of accessible material for students has required teachers and their support staff to spend time photocopying pages, chasing publishers for digital copies of books, and searching for the availability of alternative formats such as Braille.

Today, Accessible Library Services are available around the world to help remove barriers to printed material and make reading accessible for young people with special educational needs.

These fantastic Library Services include:

• Bookshare in the US
• Bookshare Ireland
• CELA Library in Canada
• Legimus in Sweden
• RNIB Bookshare in the UK

Each Library provides more than one million titles in an accessible format. The content covers the entire education landscape, from early years reading, textbooks, classic and modern literature, revision guides, higher education content, and more.

Schools supporting students with a print disability can sign up to the Library Service. This includes schools supporting students with dyslexia, dyspraxia, autism, ADHD, and vision impairment.

Tip: Visit Partner libraries available in Dolphin Products to view the full list of more than 45 supported libraries worldwide.

Registering with an Accessible Library

Although the registration process differs slightly with each Library, in general you can register a school by doing the following:

1. Visit the website of the Accessible Library in your region:
2. Check eligibility criteria. Registration is free for schools within the country or region where the Accessible Library is established. It may also be free if your school meets the Library’s service criteria.
3. Follow the registration process.

Once your school is registered with the appropriate Library Service, you can create Library Accounts for teachers and students.

Creating Teacher Accounts enables them to search for, download, and share books with their eligible students.

Creating Student Accounts enables the pupils themselves to login to the library and access the books their teachers have assigned to them. Teachers can easily assign books directly to a student and add books to a reading list for all students to access through the Library’s website.

Libraries, such as Bookshare (USA) also enable students to have free Individual Membership that Teachers can enable. An Individual Membership allows students to independently access the full Bookshare collection. Note: Students under 18 are prohibited from accessing books marked as adult content.

To learn more about Individual Membership at Bookshare, please see the following Bookshare help article: How can I add an individual membership to my students account.

While in the UK, additional libraries such as RNIB Reading Services and Calibre Audio is free for children to join, accessible through EasyReader App, and contains thousands of books children can enjoy.

Research has shown that giving children the freedom to browse, download, and read books for pleasure can have a positive and profound effect on a young person’s feeling of independence, confidence, and well-being.

Providing proof of disability

The requirement to provide proof of disability for each eligible student that is to be added to a school’s Library Account differs between Libraries.

For example, in the UK students can be added to RNIB Bookshare without a school providing proof of disability. In the US, Bookshare asks schools to sign a declaration to confirm each student is eligible to use the service.

In all cases, the eligibility criteria are explained during the registration process.

Available book formats

Accessible Libraries often offer books in various formats including EPUB, DAISY, MP3, PDF, and DOCX. Each format has its benefits, presenting books in text, audio, or synchronised text-and-audio. You will learn more about the different types of books in an upcoming lesson.

Legal right to accessible content

The Marrakesh Treaty is administered by the World Intellectual Property Organization (WIPO) and was adopted on June 27, 2013, and entered into force on September 30, 2016.

The Marrakesh Treaty makes the production and international transfer of specially adapted books for people with print impairment easier. It does this by establishing a set of limitations and exceptions to traditional copyright law.

Under the Marrakesh Treaty, Accessible Libraries must offer their services worldwide to ensure all students with a reading disability have access to accessible material.

If you are undertaking this course and your school is situated in a region of the world that does not have an Accessible Library, visit the Library website and search for the sign-up process for schools outside of the country. For example, visit Bookshare Global to learn more about signing up to Bookshare International.

Summary

In this lesson you learned how Accessible Library Services remove barriers to reading for young people with special educational needs. You identified the range of services available, and that the service provided is free to schools. Each library has over one million books in an accessible format for teachers to search for, download, and share with their students.

Quiz

Below are three sample quiz questions based on this lesson. Please spend no more than five minutes considering the answers to these questions.

1. Is it a requirement that all schools pay a registration fee to sign up to an Accessible Library?
   1. Yes.
   2. No
2. Accessible Libraries often offer books in (blank) formats.
   1. Various
   2. Only text.
   3. Only audio.
3. Accessible Libraries adhering to the Marrakesh Treaty must ensure their library resources are open to students worldwide. Is this statement true?
   1. Yes
   2. No

End of lesson

Thank you for completing this lesson. Please click the 'Next Lesson' option to continue to the next part of this course.

If you want to revisit a previous lesson, please scroll up to the Course Outline menu and select the lesson you wish to revisit.

But before you move on, here are the answers to the quiz questions:

1. No
2. Various.
3. Yes.