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The accessible library you have never heard of... at NCBI
The accessible library you have never heard of…
LAUNCHED in 2019 by NCBI (National Council for the Blind of Ireland) Bookshare Ireland guarantees far greater equity of access and opportunity for students with print disabilities in higher and further education. Print disability includes visual impairment, blindness, dyslexia, or any physical limitation in holding a printed book or text.
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Instantaneous access
Bookshare provides instantaneous access to over 500,000 international and homegrown titles, in the student's preferred format including (DAISY Audio, DAISY with images, digital braille, PDF and Word).
Bookshare.ie has an easy search engine to enable students access volumes of relevant books, journals, tionised my learning experience. Nearly every book I search is in the library and I then download it into a word format and use Read&Write (screen reading software) to read it to me. Not having a time limit on the books is helpful too as it is something that you can save and go back to.”
What is important
Laura, who has a vision impairment, says: “It’s easy to use, free and will allow you to thrive in college, without the added pressure of accessing readings, I feel I can concentrate on what is important, and that is getting the degree I deserve.”
and research for their own knowledge. These can then be simply downloaded onto a mobile or laptop. The settings can also be changed depending on the users preferred way of learning such as slowing down audio, changing font or colour.
This is a total gamechanger for these students as previously they would have had wait weeks or months to get the required books in an accessible format. Now all the academic titles needed are at their fingertips.
It means these students will no longer be at a disadvantage but instead be able to embrace and thrive in 3rd level education like their peers.
Aoife, who has dyslexia, says: “It has completely changed and revolu-
