- The publisher and Bookshare sign a letter of agreement. If the publisher wishes to sign the agreement as is, contact us, and we will send the agreement via Docusign for final signature. If there are questions about the agreement, we would be happy to discuss them.
- Bookshare will then create an SCP (a secure FTP) feed that the publisher can upload titles to. Bookshare will send the publisher login information and instructions.
- We will ask the publisher to send approximately 5 to 10 book files through this feed first for Bookshare to test, to ensure they have baseline accessibility and go through our file ingestion system as they should.
- Bookshare will then set the feed go live on Bookshare. The publisher’s book files will be automatically added to the Bookshare collection upon upload.
- They will be made available to our members (who must provide a verified proof of disability) in six accessible formats: accessible ePub, accessible Word, Braille ready file, text-to-speech audio file, Daisy file, and our own Web Reader online tool.
- Upon request, Bookshare can make the DAISY files we create from publisher files available to our publishing partners to use in any way they wish.
Content from Bookshare is made available to our members through the Chafee Amendment, an amendment to U.S. copyright law providing a copyright exception to provide content that has been modified to be made accessible to people with disabilities who would not otherwise be able to use that content.
What file types can publishers donate?
Bookshare accepts files in EPUB 2 and EPUB 3. We ask that publishers not send fixed format ePubs or graphic novels, as these cannot be made fully accessible.
We accept metadata in ONIX 2.0/2.1, ONIX 3.0/3.1, or OPF.
At this time, we do not accept PDF files. We cannot accept physical books.