14.6 Million Books to be Made Available to Blind & Print-Disabled Readers
HathiTrust Digital Library is collaborating with the National Federation of the Blind (NFB) to make 14.6 million digital volumes fully accessible to blind and print-disabled readers in the United States. The two organizations have worked together to bring to fruition their dream of providing full access of HathiTrust’s digital repository to the print-disabled since June 2014, when the Second Circuit of the US Court of Appeals upheld digitization for the purpose of providing access to print-disabled readers as a fair use under US copyright law. Over the course of this coming year, their dream will become reality.
HathiTrust currently offers full-text access to the 14.6 million volumes in its digital repository to students at HathiTrust partner institutions who qualify as blind or print-disabled. Once in place, the new program will offer a similar service to all users who qualify, regardless of affiliation. The collaboration will dramatically increase the number of books available to the blind and print-disabled, and will specifically benefit scholars in the academic community.
The new program, like the federally operated National Library Service, will lawfully and securely make books available to qualified people in the U.S. who have print disabilities.
Read the press release (https://nfb.org/hathitrust-u-m-nfb-make-14m-books-accessible-blind-and-print-disabled-users).
See HathiTrust Accessibility documentation
University of California students who are blind or print-disabled and wish to access volumes in HathiTrust should contact their campus library. Check the link for each campus below:
UC Davis (https://www.lib.ucdavis.edu/ul/services/disabil-access.php)
UC San Diego (http://libraries.ucsd.edu/services/services-for-individuals-with-disabilities.html)
UC San Francisco (https://www.library.ucsf.edu/about/policies/disabilities)