Publisher Penguin Random House has a Creative Responsibility strategy that supports its efforts to make its books more inclusive and accessible.
As part of this process, the publisher ensures that all its newly published e-books meet high standards of accessibility, including offering fully searchable and resizable text, captioned media and clear navigation.
The publisher has signed up to two of the RNIB’s charity programmes. The RNIB (the Royal National Institute of Blind People) is the UK’s leading charity supporting blind and partially sighted people.
RNIB Bookshare provides free access to books for print-disabled learners, including those with dyslexia or who are blind or partially sighted. 25,000+ Penguin Random House titles and new releases will now be instantly available to RNIB Bookshare members for free. RNIB Bookshare is largely used by learners at schools and universities to access content linked to the curriculum or to their studies.
Talking Books is a library with over 40,000 RNIB registered users and is free to use. It provides specially adapted audio versions of books via both digital download and CD. All Penguin Random House audio books will soon be available for the RNIB to adapt and make available free of charge.
For more information on the RNIB Bookshare service visit the website.
Internet Librarian International - the library’s role in accessible reading
We’ll be covering this topic at Internet Librarian International 2018. Track C on Day One is called Inclusion and Inspiration: Libraries Making a Difference. In Session C102, Jesper Klein of the National Library of Sweden and James English of the New York Public Library discuss the impacts of digital transformation (open tech standards, user-centric design, open source etc) on accessible reading and the role libraries play in this inclusive ecosystem.