Bookshare members are keeping some secrets, and I think it’s about time that someone shared them with you. Users of Bookshare actually have seven powerful advantages that most people would love to have but can’t get, even from services like NLS or their local public library. Since Bookshare serves people with many kinds of print disabilities, you may think I’m nuts when I say that we’ve got some truly amazing perks, some of which our able-bodied friends can’t get at any price. Read on to discover these secrets for yourself.
1. Round the clock access. Bookshare members can get books at any time of the day or night. If you can’t sleep and find yourself wanting a Dick Francis mystery at 3 A.M. you can just go get it. No waiting for tapes to come in the mail. No waiting for someone to turn in a book so you can check it out. No waiting lists. No figuring out when the library is open and when you can get a ride to get your books.
2. Access to new books within weeks or even days of their release.Bookshare staff and volunteers make a point of providing the New York Times bestsellers very quickly, so you can discover the hottest books and read them while they’re still the talk of the town. Bookshare added the last Harry Potter book within 4 hours of it’s release, a major step forward from the days of waiting several months for popular books to be made accessible.
3. Bookshare is convenient. There are no tapes to mail, no taxi rides needed to go to the library, no clumsy file formats that will only play on certain digital audio players. You can download books from the comfort of your home and can read them with just about any device you might own, including using the speech engines and voices you like best. Bookshare gives you the freedom to read in audio or Braille, and you are in complete control of what and how you read.
4. Bookshare users get to choose what’s added to the collection. Every person’s preferences matter. Unlike NLS, where a committee of 9 people decides, or Audible where the publishers decide, Bookshare’s collection is built by its users. If you want to read a book, you can request it, and it will usually be scanned fairly quickly. If you can’t scan books yourself, you can even send a print book to the Bookshare office to be scanned and added to the Bookshare collection. Can you top that?
5. Bookshare is a great deal financially. This is one of the really big secrets about Bookshare that most people don’t notice. The membership fee is $50 per year with a one-time setup fee of $25 during sign up. Bookshare users can download 100 books each month, and that limit can be raised if you need access to more books. If an able-bodied person were to buy 100 books in a month, she would spend somewhere around $900 to $2,000. That’s just for one month’s worth of books. Multiply that figure times 12 to see what the cost would be for a whole year. Now, how does that $50 membership look to you? It’s not so over the top, is it?
Before you begin to think that the publisher isn’t getting a fair deal here, also consider that without Bookshare, the publisher wouldn’t sell any books to this group of people. We couldn’t read the books, so we wouldn’t buy them. Bookshare staff and volunteers often buy print copies of books to scan, so a sale is being made. On top of that, many of us find that we like the book we’ve read on Bookshare and end up buying copies of it for our friends and family for birthday or Christmas presents. So the publishers do get sales here, more sales than if Bookshare didn’t exist.
6. Bookshare champions free speech. The policy at Bookshare is that if people want to read a book, it will be included in the Bookshare collection. From Bibles and religious literature to material about alternative lifestyles, Bookshare makes no effort to prevent readers from exploring the world of books. There are no selection committees to determine what we should or should not read. In true American spirit, there is freedom and protection for all points of view.
7. Bookshare members and volunteers network together to do things such as learn computer skills, help with job searches, learn to cook, and of course, to talk about what we’re reading. Bookshare promotes relationships between its members and volunteers so that there is a genuine community that offers help to people when needed. While Bookshare is an online library, it’s also a true community with laughter, passion, and action. It’s a place where I have met several of my close friends. The people are Bookshare’s greatest secret and their most important asset.
So, are you curious about what you’re missing? If so, head over to Bookshare and have a look around. You can search the collection before joining, so do a search for some of the books you want to read. Chances are good that you’ll find what you’re looking for and more. 
