Nick Bowen

(Submission from previous platform) Response by Ginny Grant, Product Manager, Literacy Products, Bookshare: Indeed, Kindle still does not support the standard accessible formats like DAISY or EPUB 3, so we are at a standstill. The concern is real, we are always on the lookout for ways to help users use the technology they have, but right now this is out of our control… David Goldfiled has documented a workaround that might work for you, and perhaps could be automated in the future if it is scalable. Please keep the ideas and feedback coming! Related response by David Goldfield: Holly, I don't wish to speak for Benetech regarding the status of this issue regarding the Kindle, as I am not a Benetech employee but just a Bookshare member. However, there are apps for both Android tablets as well as for iOS devices such as the iPad which can allow you to access Bookshare content. Personally, I use Voice Dream Reader on my iPhone and this should work equally well on the iPad. Among other things, it allows you to directly access Bookshare's library, download the books you want and then read them, both visually and audibly. It's one of my most frequently used apps on my iPhone.

Hey Karen, So far Read2Go seems to be ok with iOS 12. It may be worth logging out and back into your account to see if it's maybe an issue with the saved information. If that doesn't work unfortunately I'd recommend uninstalling and reinstalling Read2Go.

Hi Donna, Absolutely, we have a few options for NIMAC books on Chromebooks. First and the most popular by far is our Web Reader, the student logs into Bookshare and simply selects the "Read Now" link found next to the book. It opens right up in their browser and they can read from there. Some of the NIMAC books are too complicated for our Web Reader to handle, these would need another full fledged reading tool to access. I personally recommend Capti Voice which is available with a ton of great features for a small monthly subscription. https://www.captivoice.com

Hi Effie, They do need to be read within a DAISY reading tool of some sort. If you're on a mobile device like an Android or Apple phone or tablet you can use one of our apps such as Dolphin Easy Reader, Go Read, or Voice Dream Reader. If on a computer you can try to open the html manually, but you do need to extract the files from the zip file before opening, otherwise I recommend a DAISY reading application on the computer as well such as Open Lore Reader or Kurzweil.

Hi Berto, You can store Bookshare content anywhere you like. Simply make sure you are the only one who can access that content. Cloud storage is great, just as long as it's not a shared cloud storage.

Hey Janna, Our Word files typically take a little bit of time for our servers to create. On your My History page you should have an actions column with a "In Progress" note at first, that eventually changes to an "Available" or "Downloaded" link. Click on the Available or Downloaded link themselves to start the download.

Hey Keira, Are you using the Web Reader for Bookshare through a Google Chrome or Safari browser? It usually means you have another extension installed that's conflicting with our text to speech function. We hear from time to time about extensions such as Speak It conflicting, but it could be a few different ones. I recommend going in Chrome to your extensions at chrome://extensions and disabling (unchecking) all extensions and seeing if that works. Assuming it does you can turn the extensions back on one by one until you find the one that isn't playing nice with us.

Hey Jonathan, This can mean a few things, can you log into the Bookshare website directly to see if there's any alert banner information? Usually it means your account's subscription has ended or needs extending, or sometimes there's an issue with your approval status. If everything in the website is fine and you can download from there try logging out and back into Read2Go to see if that resolves the issue.

Hi Vickie, We now have special collections sorted by Lexile that you can subscribe to: https://www.bookshare.org/cms/browse#Teacher

Hi Kathy, Unfortunately as you've found Bookshare is not directly available on the Kindle line of devices. The only option if this is the only available device is to manually convert our books to be side loaded onto the device: https://www.bookshare.org/cms/help-center/can-i-read-your-books-using-kindle-or-nook

Hi Tiffany, This can be caused by a few issues, your Bookshare information may be incorrect in Kurzweil, your account may not currently be authorized for accessing Bookshare content, or the specific books you're requesting are NIMAC books, which require a teacher to assign them to you through our system. I recommend starting by going to the Bookshare.org website directly and searching for these books to find what if any error messages appear there. If you're unsure contact our support directly so that they can view your account status and the specific books in question: (650) 352.198.

Hi Michael, Audio downloads that take longer than 12 hours is extraordinarily rare, unfortunately I fear either these books are too complex for our audio processing servers to convert, or that these requests may have somehow gotten bugged in our system. Unfortunately there's not a very good way to restart these requests currently in our system, if you re-request them in the audio format now it might kick-start the process, otherwise we may need to wait an additional two days for them to officially fail before the new request could be tried. It may be worth contacting our customer support at (650) 352.0198 to ask them if they could offer an alternative option.

Hey Gretchen, I'll reach out to you directly.

Hi Tom, Currently it's not possible to stream Bookshare books on compatible devices, but it absolutely is possible to download the books and load them onto the device using it's memory card slots. For the Plextalk pocket I recommend downloading the DAISY Text format of a book. This will allow the device to use it's own built in text to speech engine to voice the book. And because it's just a raw text file, it's extraordinarily small allowing for extremely quick downloads from our site.

Hey George, That's perfect. Go Read's favorites function was our first use of accessing the Bookshare reading lists within our applications. This favorites list is actually editable by going to the Bookshare website directly, logging in, and viewing the "My Favorites" reading list. We are working on removing books from the reading list once they're added from within the app itself, so my apologies for this as it's only half done as it were.

Beeline and the Open Dyslexic font should work together, however note that sometimes due to computer limitations we do have issues with Beeline being able to render a book correctly.

Hi Cole, Books added to our wish list are presented to our volunteers for adding to Bookshare. Our volunteers are amazing, but they unfortunately do not get to everything on the wish list. So we unfortunately cannot give any time estimates on if, or when a wish list request might be added to Bookshare.

Hi George, Are you on the Bookshare website accessing your favorites list, or are you accessing this list on an app like Go Read?

Hi Patricia, For the 1st generation stream we recommend the DAISY Text format, and extract it to the $VRDTB folder on the stream.

Hi DeeDee, Bookshare members can access magazines and newspapers. We have links to both at the bottom of our browse page, or you can go there directly from: https://www.bookshare.org/browse/periodical

Hey Edee, If you haven't already the best way to get everything sorted with your account is to contact our support team directly: 650.352.0198. But to answer the most important question here just in case it helps others, there definitely isn't any penalties for letting an account lapse, you always can come back at any time for the same price.

Thanks Jacob, we'll correct it. But most importantly your account should be fully authorized to download content, so happy reading!

Hey Jacob, Hadley absolutely qualifies you for a free Bookshare account. I've already updated your account, please log into Bookshare to verify and if you have any trouble or any questions please don't hesitate to reach out to the Customer Support team.

Hi Bruce, Thanks for this note, we'll definitely investigate why this button wouldn't be labeled on Chrome OS.

Hi Rowroad, Thanks for the background, sounds like a perfect use of this format. Out of curiosity have you come across our new Word format? We are just rolling this out as we speak, but it might offer a better experience for you at least in the interim.