Welcome to my Library Page
On this page you will find a variety of links that will lead you to sources of Electronic Texts in accessible formats that is available to not only to the blind, but also to the sighted counterparts. I will mention which site requires password and which one does not. I will also mention if a particular site is open to U.S. citizens only because of copyright restrictions. Every country around the world have different copyright restrictions. Please keep coming back to this page often since I am constantly adding additional resources on my entire web site.
Electronic texts comes in a variety of formats including plain text to digital audio and digital Braille. Most files can be downloaded and read offline. Electronic braille materials can also be embossed. Sites vary with regards to accessibility and questions should be directed to the sites' webmasters. The web site address is given for each entry and telephone numbers and e-mail addresses are provided, when known, for further information.
Sources of Books in Specialized Formats
National Library Service for the Blind and Physically Handicapped distributes books and magazines in braille, large print, and audio 4-track format cassettes through cooperating network libraries throughout the country to U.S. citizens in the states that the resident resides in. This library distributes specialized playback machines for both records and cassettes on loan through U.S. mail marked FREE MATTER FOR THE BLIND AND PHYSICALLY HANDICAPPED placed on the upper right-hand corner of the package. By the year 2008, NLS will have a digital talking book machine having audio books stored on flash cards that are being used in some computers today. Other libraries are beginning to produce materials in digital Daisy format to be stored either on a server available through the Internet or distributed On CD-ROM using specialized playback machines that will allow easier navigation such as page numbers, individual chapters, paragraphs, sentences, etc.
Web-Braille Home Page is a site that contains digital Braille books in electronic format that can be read with a braille-awareness device such as portable notetakers, braille displays hooked up to computer using a screen reader and speech synthesis technologies that controls how the information is spoken or displayed. To read a book such as this, no Braille translation program is required, however, if you want to read the book with synthetic speech, it is necessary to translate the file from Grade 2 Braille to ASCII text format. Blindness products such as Open Book and Kurzweil 1000 beginning wiqh version 6.0 and above now have the capability to read these files. The user must obtain a user ID and password to utilize these services. This is a specialize program for blind and physically handicapped individuals who cannot hold a standard print book.
Canadian National Institute for the Blind Library distributes books in accessible formats to blind Canadians in Canada.
Canadian National Institute for the Blind Digital Library
Bookshare.org is a new online resource to obtain electronic books in Braille, Daisy format, and ASCII format. Books are submitted by volunteers who are both blind and sighted that have taken the time to build their own electronic bookshelf in storing their own collection of books. Books are downloaded from the Internet requiring users to sign up online to obtain their user ID and password to gain access to these files. It requires that the user uses specialized software for unpacking and reading these books. Many of these books are copyrighted and careful precaution is necessary to protect these books. A fee of $75.00 is paid for the first year and $50.00 are paid for each year when it is time to renew their subscription service.
Texas State School for the Blind and Visually Impaired Children's Book Collection contains books in Duxbury and Megadots formats. To access these books, a user Id and password is obtained before using their service. These books can be read with specialized Braille notetaker and/or braille display that is hooked up to computer. A Braille translator is not needed to read these files.
International Electronic Braille Library is maintained by International Braille Research Center located at National Federation of the Blind headquartered in Baltimore, Maryland. this service is available to anyone who is blind no matter what part of the world they are from. Books are broken down either in individual chapters or stories, or individual volumes for embossing purposes if necessary. Currently, there is no charge for this service. These files can be read with a Braille notetaker or Braille display hooked up to computer.
International Braille Research Center contains articles and other research information about usage of Braille.
Public Domain Books
John Pierson's eBook Collection
For a list of books, send a blank e-mail.
To request a book, send e-mail with subject "ebook request" and book title or titles in the message.
Commercial eBook Sites
Send Richard Seltzer an email requesting that he add you to the Free eBook of the Week Club.
Select this link to read Complete Listing of CD-ROM Book Collections.
1st_books.com For unsecured PDF files from this site, write to Patrick East.
Information about Future eBook Developments
NLS Digital Talking Book Program Information
American Foundation for the Blind
Martin Luther King's "I Have a Dream" speech in DAISY/NISO Format
Chapter One of Helen Keller's To Love This Life in DAISY/NISO Format.
Bookworm (braille-aware reading device made by Handy Tech).
US Distributor for Bookworm AccessAbillity, Inc.
Line of BrailleNote and VoiceNote products (notetakers made by Humanware).
Humanware Canada (maker of Victor Reader Soft DAISY player
American Printing House for the Blind (maker of Book Wizard DAISY player)
Duxbury Braille Translator and MegaDots
Download Acrobat Reader 7.0, 6.0, 5.0, 4.05, and the 4.05 Access Plug-In
Adobe Acrobat's Accessibility Page
Adobe E-mail Conversion Services Info
Convert PDF Web page or file to text
Send URL in message body or file as attachment to
pdf2txt@adobe.com or
pdf2txt@sun.trace.wisc.edu.
Convert PDF Web page or file to HTML
Send URL in message body or file as attachment to
pdf2html@adobe.com or
pdf2html@sun.trace.wisc.edu.
Kurzweil 1000 from Kurzweil Educational Systems
WinZip (program for decompressing ZIP files)
The Ebook Mall sells E-books for download. A variety of formats are available.
The Mable Learning Center at Oklahoma Baptist University (OBU) contains a large list of Internet E-text sites. The list includes classic literature in various languages, poetry, women's writings, computer books, historical documents, and much much more
Recordings for the Blind and Dyslexic (RFB&D) is a source of cassette, and digital (DAISY) books for the blind and print disabled. Membership fees are charged.
SparkNotes: Spark Notes offers free access to study-guides.
Accessible Book Collection Alex Catalogue of Electronic Texts Audible.com bartleby.com Bibliomania.com Ltd Bookshare.org Braille Book Files ClassicReader.com Electronic Text Center Fictionwise 4Literature International Electronic Braille Book Library Internet Public Library (IPL) Books Collection NetLibrary, a division of Online Computer Library Center (OCLC) The Online Books Page Page by Page Books Project Gutenberg Questia Tiflolibros: E-Books for the Blind Web-Braille Digital Librarian: A Librarian's Choice of the Best of the Web
Directory of Electronic Text Centers, Rutgers University Has links to electronic text centers in the United States, Canada, and Australia.
E-digital Books, LLC Electronic Text Collections Electronic Text Collections in Western European Literature Electronic Text Electronic Texts and documents, University of Washington Humanities Text Initiative, University of Michigan LETRS: Library Electronic Text Resource Service Library of Congress Full-Text Resources Refdesk.com Have you always wondered where to find those computer manuals that are supposed to be available in accessible format? Go to
O'ReillyNetwork Safari Bookshelf and check it out. You will find books in the following categories in HTML format: applied sciences, artificial intelligence, business, certification, computer science, databases, desktop applications, desktop publishing, Ebusiness, e-Commerce, Enterprise Computing, graphics, hardware, Human-Computer Interaction, internet/online, IT Management, Markup Languages, multimedia, Networking, Operating Systems, Programming, security, and Software Engineering.
REVIEWS AND COMPARISONS OF DIGITAL TALKING BOOK PLAYERS is a document giving you the latest report written by David Andrews, a blind individual who have taken the opportunity to look at all the new digital talking players (both hardware and software products) for reading daisy books.
In addition,
American Foundation for the Blind (AFB) did some reviews of digital players through their online magazine called
Access World. They also compiled a list of both
Digital Talking Book Player - Hardware and
Digital Talking Book Player - Software.
E-mail list for blind Audible users. Send an email to subscribe to this list.
The Blind Bookworm (eBook information, Mini-Reader, and more). This is an excellent resource since this site owner keeps track of all resources of eBook sites for people who are blind that is accessible.
Send a blank e-mail to subscribe to ElectroBooks E-mail List (for blind eBook Readers). This is a good list to subscribe to if you want to know other sites to go for electronic books that is accessible to the blind.
Gallery of Accessible eTexts and eBooks 2004 is another web site that lists other sources not mentioned on this page that gives additional resources for electronic texts. I hope you enjoyed browsing all of the sites as much as I enjoyed compiling these links.
Empowerment Zone -- helping individuals and communities achieve self actualization and full citizenship
This site contains all types of materials in .txt format covering all different types of topics including old computer books and manuals that is accessible for blind people.
Teddy's Center for the blind, manuals, tutorials and books for the blind and visually impaired computer users
This site contains computer manuals in all areas including computer programming manuals.
For additional resources of e-books in electronic text format for the blind, check out
Electronic Books.
Dresner, Anna. Facts: Web-Braille. Originally Compiled by Below is a couple of resources that have books in audio format either on cassettes, cds, mp3s, or other formats that can be purchased or rented for a fee.
Guide to Spoken Word Recordings: Popular Literature (2004)
Magazines in Special Media, 2005 [HTML].
Sources of Custom-Produced Books: Braille, Audio Recordings, and Large Print (2001 in HTML)
For other directories available in brf format (braille), select this link.
WB-View - A WEB-Braille reading program brought to you by Softools and the National Library Service. This is an affordable program for $59.95 to read braille books on your pc with a braille display just like reading a hardcopy that you have always done before. There is a trial copy you can download and try before you buy. If you wish to buy the product, you can do so with a credit card or pay by check. Check the site for details on specifications, features, and additional information on the product.
If you are using Duxbury Braille Translator version 10.5 service pack 2 or later such as version 10.6, it is possible for JAWS to read your grade 2 braille files on the PC even if you don't have a braille display. My personal preference is to have a braille display to read the braille book on the PC especially if you are deaf-blind like myself.
The Unabridged Project makes protected Windows Media audio books available to registered users of participating libraries. Here's what the website
says:
Unabridged provides narrated downloadable digital audio books for eligible individuals living in Northern California, Colorado, Delaware, Illinois, Massachusetts, New Hampshire, Ohio, Oregon, and Texas who are blind, visually challenged, or physically challenged. Please take time to check this site out for yourself.
To read about Access Technology Resources, select this link.
To read about Braille select this link.
Select this link to learn about Education Resources.
BrailleAware Reading and Notetaking Devices
Miscellaneous Sites for Handling Files in Various Formats
More Additional EText Resources
eBookMall, Inc
Nevada City, California
Phone: (530) 265-5200.
CONTACT: Recording for the Blind and Dyslexic
National Headquarters
20 Roszel Road
Princeton, NJ 08540
Toll free: (866) RFBD-585 (866) 732-3585
Phone: (609) 520-8079
Toll free: (800) 221-4792
(703) 631-1585
Send customer service at Accessible Book Collection an email.
Accessible Book Collection provides high-interest low-reading level digital text in HTML to individuals with a documented disability that prevents reading standard print. Also serves government and nonprofit schools and rehabilitation centers. Has $49.95 annual subscription fee.
(574) 246-0639
Send an e-mail to Eric Morgan at Info Motions
Alex Catalogue of Electronic Texts has a collection of free public domain documents from American literature, English literature, and Western philosophy. Books are in PDF and text formats.
888-283-5051 or 888-429-5575
Audible.com includes forty-five hundred audiobooks and fourteen thousand other audio programs in a broad range of subjects that can be downloaded to a computers. Readers can listen immediately, transfer files to an audio player, or burn them onto a CD. Items are spoken-word audio in a proprietary audible.com format. Cost: $14.95-$19.95 per month. (I use this service all the time and it works well with Jaws for Windows, a screen reader for the blind. The site is very accessible, and their site is making improvements all the time. Their technical support is aware of blind customers who are using this service. There is a mailing list for blind audible customers available through yahoo groups.)
Send an email to webmaster at bartleby-inc.com
Bartleby.com publishes the classics of literature, nonfiction, and reference books free of charge. Includes books of quotations, the 1914 Oxford edition of the Complete Works of William Shakespeare, the Columbia Gazetteer, Gray's Anatomy, and Strunk's Elements of Style. Books are offered in various proprietary e-book formats.
Send an email to Books at Bibliomania.com.
bibliomania.com Offers free online literature of classic fiction, drama, poetry, and short stories and contemporary articles and interviews. Most books are in HTML format.
(650) 475-5440
Send an email for more information about Bookshare
Bookshare.org Provides digital books in a broad range of subjects to United States residents who have a visual or other print disability. Requires completion of an online form, proof of disability, and payment of $25 sign-up fee and $50 annual subscription. Books are in text format and contracted Braille. Most text files are presented with XML markup and the site includes tools for reading these files.
Send an email to Jim Allan at Texas School for the Blind and Visually Impaired
Braille Book Files Has books at all grade levels that are submitted by teachers and transcribers; the site is maintained by the Texas School for the Blind and Visually Impaired. Access is password-protected and limited to individuals who have a visual or other print disability and to members of a nonprofit organization or governmental agency that provides specialized services to such individuals. Books are in MegaDots, Duxbury, and ASCII format.
Classicreader.com Contains free literature for which copyright protection has expired. Presents these works in eight categories: fiction, nonfiction, drama, children, poetry, Shakespeare, short stories, and classical. All books are in HTML; includes a plain-text format that eliminates most graphics.
(434) 924-3230
Send an email to Etext Center for further information
Electronic Text Center Combines a free online archive of tens of thousands of SGML- and XML-encoded electronic texts and images in the humanities with a service at the University of Virginia Library that offers hardware and software suitable for the creation and analysis of text. Most material is in SGML or XML; site includes tools for reading these file types.
(973) 701-6771
Fictionwise.com Publishes (i.e., owns the electronic rights to certain eBooks) and distributes (sells eBooks from other ePublishers) fiction and nonfiction in various eBook formats. Costs range from 49 cents for short stories to $2.99 and up for lengthy works. Books are in a variety of proprietary e-book formats.
Send an email to Jaret Wilson
4literature.net Has more than two thousand books, stories, poems, plays, and religious and historical documents in HTML format. Readers can read online at no charge or can purchase the entire collection on CD-ROM for $19.99.
(410) 659-9314
Send an email to Michael Gosse
International Electronic Braille Book Library Contains over one thousand titles of electronic braille books, including National Federation of the Blind. Files, which are in contracted Braile ASCII format, may be read online or downloaded for viewing offline or embossing. (When I did some volunteer work translating public domain books into contracted Braille I really enjoyed doing that project. I translated many of the National Federation of the Blind's story books into Braille so that blind people can read it with their Braille notetakers offline or online with either a Braille display attached to a computer or other Braille awareness devices.)
(734) 764-4386
Send an email to the Reading Room at IPL
Internet Public Library (IPL) Books Collection Includes over twenty thousand online books, stories, essays, poems, articles, dramas, letters, and speeches that are freely available online. Material is in text and HTML format.
800-413-4557
Send an email to Sales at Net Library.com
NetLibrary, a division of Online Computer Library Center (OCLC) Offers more than thirty-seven thousand eBook titles in subjects such as arts, business, history, literature, religion, science, and technology to academic, public, and corporate libraries that purchase a collection of titles. Patrons must create an account with an affiliated library in order to access the collection. Books are in a proprietary e-book format.
(215) 573-0758 or (215) 898-7091
Send an email to Online Books Page for further information
The Online Books Page Includes more than nineteen thousand English works that are available online at no charge. Has a listing of foreign language and literature resources and an archive of serials. Books are in HTML.
Page by Page Books has hundreds of free classic books that are in the public domain, including United States historical documents and presidential inaugural addresses. Books can be read online one page at a time.
www.promo.net/pg or
www.gutenberg.net Has three types of free texts: light literature such as Peter Pan, serious literature such as the Bible and works of Shakespeare, and reference works such as Roget's Thesaurus and almanacs. Most books are in text or HTML format; a few require proprietary e-book reading software.
(713) 358-2600
Questia Has a collection of books and journal articles in the humanities and social sciences selected by professional colledtion development librarians. Uses dynamic HTML and Javascript. Offers monthly ($24.95), quarterly (49.95), and annual ($129.95) subscription plans
Tiflolibros: E-Books for the Blind Has more than five thousand digital books in Spanish that registered members can download using their personal password. Includes a small but growing number of books in English, German, French, Italian, and Portuguese.
800-424-8567
Send an email to NLS for further information.
Web-Braille Provides braille magazines produced by the National Library Service for the Blind and Physically Handicapped (NLS), press-braille books produced by NLS since 1992, and braille music scores. Access is password-protected and limited to NLS patrons (residents of the United States or American citizens living abroad who have a visual or other print disability) and eligible institutions. Files, which are in contracted braille ASCII format, may be read online or downloaded for viewing offline or embossing.
Selected List of Additional Resources
Digital Librarian: A Librarian's Choice of the Best of the Web is Maintained by Margaret Vail Anderson, a librarian in Cortland, New York.
E-digital Books, LLC Provides a clearinghouse for writers to place their electronic literature online. Readers can download a book to a computer hard drive or obtain on CD-ROM; price varies by size of the file.
Electronic Text Collections Has links to historical and literary sources from different time periods in Afica, Asia, Europe, the Middle East, and the United States.
Electronic Text Collections in Western European Literature Lists Internet sources for literary texts in Western European languages other than English.
Electronic Text Has links to general collections; classics and history; constitutions, laws, and treaties; economics; literature, drama, and poetry; mythology and folklore; philosophy; and religion.
Electronic Texts and Documents, University of Washington Has links to a variety of topics, such as country studies, the Irish famine, Mark Twain, the Vatican files, and World War I.
Humanities Text Initiative, University of Michigan Includes the American Verse Project, different versions of the Bible, and The Collected Works of Abraham Lincoln (hosted for the Abraham Lincoln Association).
LETRS: Library Electronic Text Resource Service Provides humanities-related electronic texts via the Internet and in the LETRS Humanities Computing Lab, Indiana University
Library of Congress Full-Text Resources Includes American Memory: Historical Collections that consists of primary source materials relating to American culture and history; Country Studies with the full text of handbooks on ninety-one countries; and Meeting of Frontiers, presented in both English and Russian, that tells the story of the exploration and settlement of the American West and of the Russian Far East and Siberia.
refdesk.com Includes links to electronic texts, virtual encyclopedias, virtual newspapers, and fast facts such as almanacs, quotations, and thesauri.
Selected Bibliography
Finding e-books on the Internet Second Edition.
Boston, MA: National Braille Press, 2004 & 2002. $14.
Available in large print and braille. (88 St. Stephen Street, 02115).
Select this link to go to National Braille Press, Inc.. This book is also available on CD-ROM and floppy disk as portabook. It is also downloadable after purchase.
Washington: Library of Congress, National Library Service for the Blind and Physically Handicapped, 2003. 2p. Free.
Select this link to obtain Facts: Web-Braille.
Carol Strauss
Reference Section
Judy Dixon
Consumer Relations Officer
ADDITIONAL RESOURCES
Table of Contents