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Flat World Knowledge In Partnership to Distribute Textbooks to the Disabled, Lands $2.5M in Funding

We've covered Flat World Knowledge before, and its efforts to to make college curriculum more accessible to both students and teachers. The company has two major announcements this week that will have anyone who supports free, open source textbooks dancing a jig.

First up is the news that Flat World has partnered up with Bookshare to supply digital textbooks to people with print disabilities that inhibit a person's ability to use printed materials in the standard way. The initial books are mostly geared toward business and economic classes, with more areas of study on the way. The books are delivered as digital XML files, bypassing the entire scanning process to save time and the possibility of scanning errors.

Bookshare will then convert the books to DAISY (Digital Accessible Information System) and BRF (Braille Ready Format) formats. DAISY allows readers to easily navigate through a book, customize the voices and speed in which the content is read, and even manipulate the text and appearance of individual pages.

According to Bookshare's Web site, "Traditional copyrighted books that do not have open licensing terms, including those contributed to Bookshare by almost all other publishers, are protected with digital rights management technology and are available only to those with a documented print disability.  Operating under an exemption in the U.S. copyright law called the Chafee amendment, Bookshare maintains rigorous qualification standards to prevent books from being distributed to unqualified individuals. The Chafee amendment enables nonprofit and government entities to create accessible versions of copyrighted works and distribute them freely to individuals with print disabilities."

The other big announcement out of Flat World headquarters is news of another round of funding worth $2.5 million, bringing the total to a whopping $10.5 million since the company launched. VentureBeat notes, "In addition to launching with Bookshare, it is prepping more titles for release online and in print format."

• college
• textbooks
• flat world knowledge
• bookshare
• disabled

by green on Dec. 20, 2009

Great Idea I would also suggest using GreenTextbooks.org

Save Money, Save The Planet

GreenTextbooks.org specializes in the recycling of textbooks, DVDs, CDs. Buying used textbooks not only saves you money, but cuts down on greenhouse gases caused by the manufacturing of new textbooks.

With GreenTextbooks.org you're not only saving trees, you are saving some green. http://www.GreenTextbooks.org

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