[bksvol-discuss] Re: [bookshare-discuss] Great news about Bookshare.org
- From: "Estelnalissi" <airadil@xxxxxxxxxxxxx>
- To: <bookshare-discuss@xxxxxxxxxxxxx>
- Date: Mon, 1 Oct 2007 01:59:58 -0400
Great news about Bookshare.orgDear Jim Fruchterman,
You have my heart-felt congratulations.
From its inception, Bookshare under your guidance, has shown its quality. The
steady growth of the Bookshare collection and membership has demonstrated that
within the blind population there is a great demand for large numbers of books
whose diversity is limited only by what is being, and has been, printed, bound,
and published.
Bookshare gives its books generously to its members, most of whom have felt
reading deprived for most of their lives. You show confidence in their
intellect and community spirit and invite them to add to their status as
consumers by becoming contributors, making them part of the organization. You
have such faith in them that you made voluntary investment of their resources,
indispensable to Bookshare's success.
And success Bookshare has had. Given the foundation of supportive staff and
electronic tools born of your inventive intellect and optimistic insight, blind
book lovers across the country responded by procuring books and equipment and
learning the skills to prepare books to deliver to be transformed into formats
friendly to fingers, ears and eyes, avidly eager to read for learning and
pleasure. How did you know just the right blend of incentive, staff support,
and structure for the volunteer community to inspire Booksharians of all ages
across the country to enthusiastically build a collection approaching
thirty-five thousand books?
Yours is indeed a multifaceted genius. That you choose to dedicate your talents
to the enrichment of those who can only access print books which have been
specially modified, is a gift of vast goodness. The government chose well in
awarding you funds to focus on making Bookshare's resources available to young
students because you clearly have the skills and values to succeed with the
job.
The Department of Education exercised sound judgment by recognizing the
potential of Bookshare, with you as its guiding force,with such a substantial
funding award. I am so proud of you and proud to be a part of Bookshare. I
can't even imagine the changes and improvements to come, but I know Bookshare
will surely evolve to further enrich the lives of special needs readers.
Always with love,
Lissi
----- Original Message -----
From: Lisa Friendly
To: bksvol-discuss@xxxxxxxxxxxxx ; bookshare-discuss@xxxxxxxxxxxxx
Sent: Sunday, September 30, 2007 10:21 PM
Subject: [bookshare-discuss] Great news about Bookshare.org
Forwarded from Jim Fruchterman:
I'm happy to share incredible news, which will transform Bookshare.org.
On Friday, the Office of Special Education Programs of the U.S. federal
Department of Education made a major five-year award of $32 million to
Bookshare.org.
This funding is to fully support all schools and students with
qualifying print disabilities in the United States, K-12 and
post-secondary, with access to the entire Bookshare.org collection of
accessible electronic books and to software for reading those books. As
of October 1, 2007, we will cease charging these schools and students
anything to join Bookshare.org as members.
In this initial news flash, I can't begin to share with you all of our
plans for Bookshare.org now with this funding. But, we are planning on
adding more than 100,000 new educational books and materials to our
existing collection of over 34,000 titles. We are going to reach out to
every student, every family with a disabled student, and every school in
the U.S. to offer them the chance to join the Bookshare.org community
and transform the practice of making books accessible. We are going to
coordinate with schools and publishers to deliver the best quality
content possible and lower their costs in meeting our shared obligations
to serve every student with a disability in the nation. We expect to
provide millions of books to students through this new program over the
next five years, at a tenth or less of the historical cost of providing
these services.
And, we expect our improvements to serve all of these students will make
Bookshare.org better for all of our Bookshare.org users.
Bookshare.org's track record of being highly responsive to our members
will be enhanced with significant funding to implement major
improvements to our content and services.
Our volunteer community is an essential part of what made this grant
possible, and you are a crucial part to making this a success in the
future. Your commitment to our shared vision of better access to
information is core to where we are heading.
We want to make equal access to educational materials for disabled
students a reality!
Jim
Jim Fruchterman
President and CEO
Benetech
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