Accessing Books Without Barriers for Your Education and Beyond

A guide for blind and partially sighted students

The vast world of published books has never been more accessible to blind and partially sighted students. There are multiple ways to access books in various digital formats as well as printed, Braille and audio. If you’re wondering how you can access books both for your education and leisure in an accessible way, keep reading!

This page will explore various services currently available, including specialist and mainstream services. It’s also worth checking out your local and university libraries as these should also offer accessible options for accessing books and educational materials, including digital or audio versions. 

Keep in mind – Your school, college or university should be making your books accessible! 

While we will be recommending plenty of ways to access books on this page, it’s still the responsibility of your school, college or university to provide you with access to any reading material you need for your subjects in your preferred format. Your education provider should be sourcing books in alternative formats or scanning hard copies themselves to produce their own alternative formats. It shouldn’t be on you to find ways of accessing essential material. 

Talk to your QTVI, one-to-one, SENCO, student disability officer, library services etc about getting your reading materials in the right format for you. 

If you feel you’re not getting adequate support with this, you can get in touch with our Student support service for extra advice and guidance.

RNIB Bookshare 

The UK education collection from RNIB Bookshare provides blind and partially sighted students with free access to a library of over a million accessible books, including fiction, non-fiction and even revision guides. Once you find the book you’re looking for, you’ll have a choice of formats to download, including standard word doc, BRF (Braille file which can be loaded onto a Braille reading device) or an audio file. Not all books will be available in all formats but there will usually be a fair choice. If a book you require is not in the Bookshare library, you can put in a request for them to obtain it.

A common way of accessing this particular library via a smartphone is the Dolphin EasyReader app. This is available on Apple and Android and provides an easy, accessible way to browse and access your books on the go. 

Top Tip 

To access this library, you will need your school, college or university to create a school account, then create your account for you. It’s totally free, so there should be no reason for them not to set this up. If you need the RNIB to contact your school on your behalf to let them know how to get started, you can ask them to do this. You can contact RNIB Bookshare directly, or by filling out their enquiry form.

RNIB Reading Services 

The RNIB Talking Books Service  has its own accessible digital library called Reading Services, enabling blind and partially sighted people to enjoy free online access to a collection of over 40,000 fiction and non-fiction titles for adults and children, available in the DAISY audio format as a digital download, physical USB or CD delivered to your door.

The Reading Services getting started guide explains how to download and listen to books using a computer. You can also access this library via the Dolphin EasyReader app.

Calibre Audio 

Calibre Audio  offers blind and partially sighted people access to a collection of over 11,000 audiobooks. Their collection contains literature recorded specially for younger readers, including some curriculum resources relevant to key stages 1-4, GCSE and A-level subjects. You can choose to borrow books for free by post on memory stick, or to download or stream online for a fee of £3 per month or £30 per year.

As with the RNIB libraries, you can connect to the Calibre library on your smartphone via the Dolphin EasyReader app, just remember you have to pay for the Calibre digital service.

Commercial E-Book and Audiobook Services 

Amazon 

Amazon Kindle and Audible are perhaps the most well-known services for eBooks and audiobooks respectively with the widest selection. Millions of books are available for purchase and can be read or listened to using apps available on computers, smartphones and tablets (including Amazon’s Fire Tablet devices). Currently, the Kindle app for Windows is not very accessible using a screen reader, so we would recommend accessing this via a smartphone or tablet.

Owners of Amazon Echo smart speaker devices can also access their books through the Alexa voice assistant. The Amazon Echo can either read a Kindle book aloud or play an audio book from Audible.

Top Tip 

if you find the accessibility features within the Kindle app particularly useful and would like to use it to read documents other than Kindle books, there are several simple methods you can use to send any document to your Kindle library. This article explains how to do this via your Amazon account on the web.

Apple Books 

Apple Books is another example of an accessible commercial electronic bookstore offering eBooks and audiobooks for a low cost through Apple iPhones, iPads and Mac computers.

Google Books 

Google Books offers free access to over 10 Million books as PDF downloads. If you have a Google account, you can access this library and search for what you need via the web. You can also purchase books via Google Play on an Android device.

While none of these commercial services are made specifically for blind and partially sighted readers, they all have a good range of access features and customisation options built in, so are all very viable choices.

Top tip 

Don’t forget to check out our Access printed text the smartphone way page for more tips on accessing printed material.!

Get involved 

Found this page useful? Discovered a way of accessing books which we haven’t mentioned here? We want to hear from you. Head over to our social media to let us know!