Accessible Books Consortium (ABC)

ABC is a public-private partnership led by the World Intellectual Property Organization (WIPO). It includes organizations that represent people with print disabilities such as the World Blind Union (WBU); libraries for the blind; standards bodies, and organizations representing authors, publishers and collective management organizations.

The ABC Global Book Service, formerly known as the TIGAR Service, is an on-line catalogue that allows participating libraries for the blind and organizations serving people who are print disabled, known as authorized entities, to obtain easily the accessible content they need.  The Service supports the goals of the Marrakesh VIP Treaty at a practical level.

The Accessible Books Consortium Launches a Guide for the Production of Braille Books in India, ABC, 2018

DAISY Forum of India (DFI) is a member.

All India Confederation of The Blind (AICB)

Publications

• Periodicals and Magazines

  • Publishes 4 magazines in braille and on cassettes, three children’s print journals and reports on various research projects in braille.

  • A Monthly Audio-Journal: 'Shravanika' in Hindi.

  • 12 periodicals in English, Hindi, Gujarati, Kannada, Marathi and Tamil languages.

  • Women's magazines (monthly) in braille in Hindi, Gujarati, Kannada and Tamil.

• Books into braille

AICB provides wide range of books both in Braille and recorded format in a subsidized cost. Here are the catalogs of Braille books and recorded CDS. 

• • Stories, drama and novels in English and Hindi

  • Braille textbooks in Hindi, English, Sanskrit, Punjabi, Malayalam and Kannada.

• Audio Book Production

AICB till date more than 650 titles on audio cassettes. Making available to readers on request, recorded books obtained from other libraries in India and outside under the Library-Loan Scheme. 

• • Recording studio seeks to meet the requirements of reading material for blind students pursuing higher education. 

  • Produced audio cassettes.

• Books

  • Reminiscences

  • Maa Se Maa Tak

  • Combating Discrimination: Some Path-Breaking Initiatives for the Visually Impaired

  • Abilities Redefined: 40 life stories

  • Status of blind women

  • Teaching Computer Applications

• Hand Book

  • Handbook for visually impaired ladies

• Research Reports

  • Challenges of Covid--19: Mental Health and Well-beingAmong the Visually Impaired

  • Inclusion of the Visually impaired, an impact study

  • Inclusive study-1

  • Inclusive study-2

  • Teaching computer applications to the blind & identifying new computer

  • Status of blind women in organization working with the blind and in society in South Asian Countries

  • Manual for teachers for visually impaired children in integrated settings

Source

• All India Confederation of the Blind (AICB), NOVOI, 2020

• All India Confederation Of The Blind, IndiaMart

American Printing House (APH)

Educational Resources: Every child deserves a chance for quality education, and students with visual or multiple impairments are no exception. Sometimes, however, they need a few extra tools. APH provides lot of them - some are free, but most are priced.

Besides Print (large), Braille and Audio format it also offers varied resources in terms of Webinars, Apps, Gadgets, and Tools. These are categorized as follows:

• Core Curriculum: Core Curriculum forms the basis that students need to be college- and career-ready. Various aids are available for the following:

  • STEM (Science, Technology, Engineering, and Math)

  • English and Language Arts

  • Social Studies

  • Fine Arts

  • Business and Vocational

• Expanded Core Curriculum: The expanded core curriculum outlines the unique educational needs that students who are blind or visually impaired have beyond the standard core curriculum. Various aids are available for the following:

  • Communication Modes and Literacy Education

  • Assistive Technology and Electronics

  • Orientation and Mobility

  • Career Education and Transition

  • Self Determination

  • Independent Living

  • Visual Efficiency and Low Vision

  • Recreation and Leisure

• Physical Education: Physical fitness, an active lifestyle, exercise – no matter what you call it, it’s a good way to have fun, be healthy, keep a good frame of mind, and reduce stress. Various aids are available for the following:

  • Physical Education Classes

  • Physical Education Equipment

• Multiple Disabilities: At APH, we offer products for children and adults that enable them to do what is necessary, to do what is possible, and ultimately to do the impossible. Various aids are available for the following:

  • Accessible Learning

  • Sensorimotor Spotlight Newsletter

  • Featured Educational Products

  • Independent Living

• Accessible Textbooks: At APH, we’re driven to make sure students with visual impairments are able to receive their accessible textbooks as quickly as possible. Ways to find textbooks are given in left.

• Tactile Literacy Tools: Shapes can be difficult to understand through explanation alone. For many children who are blind or visually impaired, the best way to help them understand the world around them is through hands-on learning. They need to feel the difference between a circle and a square. Tactile literacy is key to reading braille, understanding graphs, and eventually having a firm grasp on advanced geometry. 

  • Search Image Library

• Training: Check out our online courses specially designed for vision professionals, educators, parents, consumers and students.

  • Virtual ExCEL Academy: As every nation continues to adjust with some schools and students remaining in virtual instruction and others returning to brick and mortar buildings, APH will continue to provide the APH Virtual ExCEL Academy for students. 

  • Access Academy: In response to COVID-19 and the challenges of distance learning and teaching, we launched a series of #AtHomeWithAPH webinars in April 2020 which provided the training and education needed to get the most out of APH products and services. These webinars were so needed and so popular, that we have decided to offer them on a permanent basis. These ongoing webinars have been renamed Access Academy. These are free.

  • APH Hive: Buzz over to the APH Hive, our FREE eLearning platform for educators and families that you can access at any time from the comfort of your home and office. With a growing course catalog covering categories like Early Childhood, Expanded Core Curriculum and more, we want to give you the tools you need to support students. All you have to do is sign up, watch the course content at your leisure, and complete the follow up assignment to get your certificate for ACVREP credit!

• Tools for Teachers: At APH, we know that each student learns in his or her own way. To help you find the perfect learning solution for your students, we have created a number of resources to help you with fresh ideas and new approaches to creating meaningful learning plans.

  • Braille Bug: Designed for elementary students, Braille Bug combines accessibility with a fun and playful environment designed to teach sighted children about braille and to encourage inclusion.

  • Building on Patterns (BOP): Is a systematic, comprehensive literacy program designed to teach young children with visual impairments to read and write using braille.

  • Cortical Visual Impairment (CVI): APH offers a variety of products and publications to support children living with Cortical Visual Impairment.

  • Tactile Skills Matrix: Locate APH products that support the development of skills and concepts that contribute to students’ tactile literacy.

  • Symbols and Meaning (SAM): Understanding symbols and their meanings is an important part of a child’s educational development. The SAM Guidebook provides strategies for developing a strong foundation for this important cognitive skill.

  • Guide to Designing Tactile Illustrations for Children’s Books: Whether you are a teacher, transcriber or caregiver of a child with a visual impairment, this guide provides information to assist you in the creation of tactile illustrations

  • Learning on the move: APH offers a variety of Apps so you can learn wherever you may be.

    • Crossword

    • Talking Typer

    • Animal Watch Vi Suite

    • Slapstack Math

    • Draw2Measure Protractor

APH Press Catalog of Publications

Archive 

This audiobook archive is a registered nonprofit that impressively compiles some libraries mentioned on this list and more. In addition to housing LibriVox and Project Gutenberg's catalogs, Archive grants users access to Naropa Poetics Audio Archive, and Maria Lectrix.

Audible

Audible is an American online audiobook and podcast service owned by Amazon.com Inc. that allows users to purchase and stream audiobooks and other forms of spoken word content. This content can be purchased individually or under a subscription model where the user receives "credits" that can be redeemed for content monthly and receive access to a curated on-demand library of content. Audible is the United States' largest audiobook producer and retailer.

Audiobook Treasury

It has more focus on selling paid audiobooks, but it also offers a wealth of free audiobooks. Most of the free audiobooks are new and made available for free by the authors. You can also find some renowned old titles. 

• Buy Audio Books

• Audiobook Reviews

• Latest Free Audiobooks

• Free Audio Books

• Book Quizzes

audiobooks.com

We believe that reading great books makes a person happier, helps them learn and makes them grow. A wise man, Stephen King, once said "books are a uniquely portable magic". We couldn't agree more.

That's why we've created an audio book service that lets us, and all of the other audio book lovers out there, take our favorite books anywhere. To put it simply, we're a bunch of book and tech nerds doing cool things to make listening to books – and podcasts – better.

Audiobooks.com is an RBmedia company.

AudiobooksNow.com

It is a new rental service for downloading and streaming audiobooks developed by BookLender.com. Here you can stream or download audiobooks from a website, Android, or iOS app. The site offers a large selection of bestselling and classic titles. The prices are low, there is always a section of free books.  

Blind Help Project

Sometimes it may seem that blindness creates barriers when trying to accomplish a task, but for us, we believe that this concept can be eliminated. We have setup an All-in-One platform to assist in this process by providing a wide variety of digital resources, along with demonstrations, guideline and round the clock community assistance for their utilization to maximum possible capacity and let you become productive, inspired, entertained and employed.

• BHP is an independent volunteer-based resource that aims to empower the blind and visually impaired across the world in understanding, learning and acquiring a variety of accessible software applications by making them readily available through our website, producing technical articles and audio tutorials and making BHP an open community-driven platform, through our vast social media presence. 

• There is insufficient material and documentation available to understand and efficiently utilize various technologies, so we aim to provide assistance with these complications. 

• There is also a private group on Facebook that anyone can join with permission from the admin, use the resources, and contribute for the cause

Bookshare

Bookshare makes reading easier. People with dyslexia, blindness, cerebral palsy, and other reading barriers can customize their experience to suit their learning style and find virtually any book they need for school, work, or the joy of reading.

• Customized Reading: Customize your reading experience with ebooks in audio, audio + highlighted text, braille, large font, and other formats.

• 1,001,854 Titles: Access the largest library of textbooks, bestsellers, children's books, career resources, and more for people with reading barriers.

• Read Anywhere: Read on almost any device, including smartphones, tablets, Chromebooks, computers, and assistive technology devices.

• Lowest Cost: Get unlimited access: FREE for qualified U.S. students and schools, less than $1 per week for adults, and reduced fees in certain countries.

Subscription Fees

Limited Time Offer – Free Membership for Certain Countries

To further our mission to promote global literacy, Bookshare is currently offering free annual memberships for residents of the following countries:

India, Pakistan, Sri Lanka, Bangladesh, Nepal, Myanmar, Bhutan, Kenya, Malawi, Tanzania, Ethiopia

Braille Institute

Free Library for the Blind and Visually Impaired

Braille Institute’s Library Services, the Southern California branch of the National Library Service (NLS), a network coordinated by the Library of Congress, has been providing a free library for the blind and visually impaired for more than six decades by. Books, periodicals and other texts are available in braille and recorded formats. With a Reader Advisor’s help, choosing books is easy; patrons select from more than 100,000 titles and 1.2 million volumes accessible from the Library’s collection.

Download Digital Books and Magazines

Braille and Audio Reading Download (BARD) is a program offered by the National Library Service and Braille Institute Library that allows patrons to digitally download both audio and e-Braille titles from an extensive collection of titles. To use BARD, you must have a Braille Institute Library account. 

Blind Persons' Association, Kolkata

BPA was established in December 5, 1946. by a few educated and conscious blind youth under the presidentship of Late Nagendranath Sengupta, professor of Bangabasi College, to promote self-confidence and self-dependence among their fellow brothers and sisters. 

It works in the following:

• Education of the Blind

• Braille Press and Library Project

• Employment

• Social Security

• Social Placement

• Re-Education of the General Society

• Braille, Audiobook and other publications

• Advocacy and Awareness

Braille Books

BPA provide Braille books in English and Bengali to students with blindness or low vision in India for INR 10 per Braille volume. Institutions can buy these books at paper cost. Several braille books produced at the Braille press at Lal Bihari Shah Braille Academia are available. 

Audiobooks

BPA offers audio books in English and Bengali free or at media cost to the blind readers. Free download is available for selected audio books and stories. Any print-disabled person may collect these audio / talking books on his memory drive absolutely free or at the cost of CD/DVD.

Audiobooks are not normally AVAILABLE FOR DOWNLOAD. Members and any print-disabled reader can collect audio books from us at distribution cost of Rs. 50 per CD. For postal delivery you have to pay Rs. 20 for every two CDs or DVDs for shipping and handling. Non-members have to submit an authenticated proof of print-disability. It may be collected by a reader free on his flash drive.

Besides the audiobooks produced by BPA, audiobooks collected from other sources are also available from the library on request. These books are recorded for the benefit of print-disabled readers under S52 (1) (zb) of the Copyright Act of India, 1957 (amended in 2012). Any unauthorized reproduction or editing of these talking books is strictly prohibited.

Free Audiobooks

BPA has posted some of some of the audiobooks for free download. The list is limited due to copyright restrictions.

• PadmaNadir Majhi by Manik Bandyopadhyay – Bengali

• Madhabi Kankan by Ramesh Chandra Dutta – Bengali

• Daisy version of the Rights of Persons with Disabilities Act, 2016 – English

• Daisy version of Rights of Persons with Disabilities Rules, 2017 – English

• Folk Tales From Around the World – English

A member of BPA or a print disabled person, may obtain a copy of every new audio book. A download link to a list of Audio Book Listeners are sent by email against an email with membership details or print disability certificate.

Shrutikalpa: Online Quarterly Magazine in Bengali Audio

This audio magazine is available on Youtube every three months on the first day of Baishak, Shraban, Ashwin and Magh. Subscribe to Shrutikalpa for new posts on this free literary magazine.

Bengali Short Stories

BPA regularly uploads Bengali short stories on Shrutikalpa channel since last April 2019. 

Articles

BPA regularly publishes informative and thought provoking articles. These are categorized as follows:

• Braille System

  • Unified English Braille, An Assessment

  • How Tactile Writing Began

  • How to Read and Write in Braille

  • Genesis of Braille System

  • Relevance of Braille System in the Age of High Technology

  • The Social Implication of Braille System

• Education

  • Evaluation of The Current Systems for Educating Sightless Children

  • Importance of Special Education at Primary Level for the Blind Children

  • Importance of Integrated Education for the Sightless Students

  • Chronological Sketches

• Advocacy

  • Suggestions from the Disabled for Budget 2019

  • Reservation for the Disabled in Election

  • Disabled Voters and the Election

• Awareness

  • Winter Over, Spring in the Offing

  • Blindness in English Literature

• Personalities

  • A Tribute to Charu Chandra Bose, A Physically Challenged Martyr of India’s Freedom Movement

  • A Tribute to Louis Braille

  • Valentin Haüy, the Predecessor of Louis Braille

  • Helen Keller, Her Social Activities

  • Helen Keller: A Reassessment

  • Role of Helen Keller in the Emancipation of the Sightless

  • Lal Bihari Shah

Digitalbook.io (formerly Librophile)

This is a place to find free public domain audio books and eBooks. You can explore over 100,000 Kindle, ePUB, and audio books using free bookshelves.

The powerful search engine not only looks hard for free digital books from great sources such as LibriVox, Gutenberg, Google Books, and Open Library, but also includes results from Amazon to give you the best choice. It has a good navigation, so you can easily sort books by genre, price, author, etc. All the books listed in the catalogue go with a description, book cover, chapters preview, and download link. 

• Trending

• Top-Rated

• Genres

• YouTube Channel

Free Classic Audio Books

Several free audio book downloads

eStories

eStories has over 120,000 audiobook titles, including best-sellers spanning every genre and new releases added each week. Personalized search and discovery tools make it easy to find your next story.

You may listen them on Android or iOS.

HathiTrust

The HathiTrust is a partnership of more than a dozen member research libraries that scan their collections to make them available over the Internet. 

Full texts of materials in the public domain are available. 

The HathiTrust recently partnered with the National Federation of the Blind to make their collection accessible to people with print disabilities.

Helen Keller Archive

The Helen Keller Archival Collection at the American Foundation for the Blind (AFB) is the world’s largest repository of letters, speeches, press clippings, scrapbooks, photographs, architectural drawings, artifacts and audio-video materials relating to Helen Keller.

A fully accessible digital collection. 

The collection contains detailed biographical information about Helen Keller (1880-1968), as well as a fascinating record of over 80 years of social and political change worldwide. Keller was a feminist, a suffragist, a social activist, and a pacifist, as well as a prolific writer and published author.

Her impact reached far beyond the United States. She traveled to 39 countries as an advocate and global goodwill ambassador and met and corresponded with many of the leading figures of her time, including nine U.S. presidents, and prominent social activists, philanthropists, industrialists, writers, artists, and actors. The collection contains information on all these subjects and individuals as well as the countless ordinary men, women, and children who corresponded with her.

Thanks to the enormous generosity of the National Endowment for the Humanities, this digital archive is being made accessible to blind, deaf, deafblind, sighted, and hearing audiences alike. 

This collection contains 58,786 items comprising 186,876 images.

Jyothirgamaya Foundation

To feed the hunger for knowledge in the visually impaired, Jyothirgamaya has set out to develop an audio library. In today’s day and age, with the rapid advancement of technology, there are audiobooks that are made reading accessible for the visually impaired. Now books can be read in Daisy format, where the visually impaired can also navigate page by page, and para by para with the utmost ease. In view of the growing thirst for knowledge, and the need to increase reading habit among visually impaired, Jyothirgamaya and Empowerment Centre for the Blind (ECB) join hands in the onset of a new venture, the AmrithaVarshini Audio Library, which makes an abundance of books available to the blind.

CLABIL Project: Central Library of Audio Books in Indian Languages

Guiding Principles

1. Books directly to the blind person.

2. No copyright infringement.

3. Free to download books / audio content.

4. Synergy with the ecosystem and drawing on mutually beneficial components.

5. All those who can benefit from the project will benefit. Beneficiaries are:

• Blind Children

• Children in semi urban and rural schools who drop out for want of recreational activities

• Older people who lose sight as they age

• Children of Indian origin who are not familiar with the script of an Indian language but would like to know about the literature of that language

• People in semi urban / rural areas who are print disabled (not educated enough)

• Girl children(and older women) who are not enrolled in schools

Content Creation

1. Blind institutions who may want to share their audio books with others.

2. Individual Volunteers who will record at home and share files.

3. Organizations and Educational Institutions that will take up recording as a group volunteering activity - through the Read Fest event.

4. Commercial audio book producers - we will talk to them about letting us use their rejected files or obsolete files.

5. Tie ups with authors to let us use vanilla recordings for free and sell the production quality content for a royalty

Content Consolidation

• All content will be accessible from a single location

• The database is searchable by key words

• For all paid content, the user can decide whether they would like to buy, but at least the search result should produce information that such content exists.

• Esha – The Braille Place

Distribution

1. Internet - Free downloads. No signup required

2. Mobile Phones - Tie ups with mobile phone service providers to allow users to download this content on their mobile phones and to store it on their local media if required.

3. In the unlikely event that a beneficiary cannot reach us through the internet and mobile phone, we will provide the content on digital media and physically ship it.

4. For some blind schools and village schools, we will also distribute mp3 players with inbuilt speakers so that the stories can be told to the entire class.

Esha – The Braille Place

Esha is a bunch of volunteers who are together because they believe in the same thing – That being blind does not have to mean being unemployed.  

Founded in January 2005 by Nidhi Kaila – an IIM Calcutta alumnus, Esha is a non-profit initiative working towards making the blind self-reliant. It is now a self sustaining bunch of volunteers who join for the love of the work, and because they believe in the mission of self sustenance for the blind.  About Esha

Through innovative ways and means that work towards generating a sustainable source of livelihood for the blind and something substantial in return for the non-blind. Through this dual-pronged approach, Esha looks at tapping the conscience of the corporate world in the country by urging them to make their communication  inclusive and their staff sensitive towards the blind. It is by far the simplest and the most effective means to execute Corporate Social Responsibility.

Books in Braille Format

These are the books that are available in .dxb format. Any Blind school with an embosser can ask for the Duxbury version of these books. All you have to do is to print the file using a Braille embosser attached to your computer. This set of books is available to any Blind school across, so long as ONE copy of the book is given to a blind person as his/her personal copy.

Esha Online Audio Library

6004 audio files are now available for download in 22 languages

Some of the content here is copyright protected for all users who are not visually challenged. Against each file, you will see a marker - Free for all. 

• If the value in this marker is "y", that content can be downloaded and shared with anyone. 

• If the value is "n", the content is for the use of the visually challenged. 

You can, however, download and use the non-copyright protected content for our other beneficiary groups:

1. Print disabled children and adults. (adults and children who cannot read)

2. Children in remote areas and underprivileged backgrounds who do not have access to libraries or reference material.

3. Girl children who are not sent to school.

4. Other users will benefit from this content - e.g., muscular dystrophy, dyslexia, older people who struggle with age related vision problems et al.

Indian Association for the Blind

IAB established of a well-equipped Braille and Audio Library in 1995.

The impressive library has a collection of 300 Audio and 979 Braille Books covering a diverse range of subjects in English and Tamil. Students are encouraged to make the most of the selection on History, biographies, novels, magazines and self-development.

The library also offers lending facilities and every year around 600 students and professionals throughout the state enhance their knowledge with resources from here.

Learn Out Loud 

It offers a selection of over 10,000 free educational audiobooks. No account or subscription needed, you find an audiobook you want and download it. 

When we started LearnOutLoud.com back in 2005 our goal was to showcase the best audio & video learning content on the Web, and our mission hasn't changed much.  Since then we have grown alongside the vast expansion of audio & video learning on the Internet with the rising popularity of audio book downloads, podcasts, YouTube, free colleges courses, and many other great resources that have become available.  

• Over the years we have curated a Catalog of over 50,000 of the best audio books, podcasts, free downloads, and videos you can learn from.  

• One of the most popular sections of our site is our Free Audio & Video Directory which features over 10,000 free audio books, courses, documentaries, lectures, interviews, speeches, and more.  

• We also have a Podcast Directory with over 7,000 carefully selected audio & video podcasts you can learn from. 

• Along with these free sections we also feature over 30,000 educational Audio Book Downloads from all the major audio book publishers and a lot of smaller publishers and individual authors. 

• Our Kids Audio Books Section features over 2,000 audio books, podcasts, and free videos for kids & teens to learn from.

Learning Ally

Learning Ally is a private, nonprofit organization that lends recorded textbooks and other educational materials to people who cannot read regular print because of visual, perceptual, or other physical disabilities.

A registration fee and an annual membership fee are required.

Audio for School are available for:

• Elementary School (Grades 3-5)

• Middle School (Grades 6-8)

• High School (Grades 9-12)

To make all books in the public domain available, narrated by real people and distributed for free, in audio format on the internet

LibriVox

It is a big collection of free audiobooks read by the volunteers.

Fundamental Principles

• Librivox is a non-commercial, non-profit and ad-free project

• Librivox donates its recordings to the public domain

• Librivox is powered by volunteers

• Librivox maintains a loose and open structure

• Librivox welcomes all volunteers from across the globe, in all languages

• LibriVox volunteers record chapters of books in the public domain, and then we release the audio files back onto the net for free. All our audio is in the public domain, so you may use it for whatever purpose you wish. 

Listen - Use the collection

Read - Contribute to the collection

Listen Notes

Listen Notes is the best podcast search engine. It's like Google, but for podcasts. 

Search the whole Internet's podcasts. Curate your own podcast playlists. Listen on your favorite podcast player apps.

As of Jun 10, 2021, there are 2.45M+ podcasts, in 106M+ episodes, that have been searched 13M+ times and listened 49.8M+ times.

Lit2Go

Lit2Go is a free online collection of stories and poems in Mp3 format.

An abstract, citation, playing time, and word count are given for each of the passages. Many of the passages also have a related reading strategy identified. 

As indicated by its name, Lit2Go focuses on the classics. What sets the site apart from the rest, however, is that it's a treasure trove for an expansive selection of poetry compilations, many of which can be hard to find in the catalogs of other audiobook sites.

Loyal Books

In the past, you might have known Loyal Books as Books Should Be Free. 

The site offers free audiobooks from a multitude of genres, from adventure and romance to science fiction and historical fiction. 

Users can download titles from Loyal Books to be listened to via an MP3 file or through the Apple Podcasts app, or to stream on an RSS feed.

There are several books of various genre

Manybooks

ManyBooks was established in 2004 with the vision to provide an extensive library of books in digital format for free on the Internet. Over decades, ManyBooks has grown into a platform where self-publishing authors have the opportunity to introduce their work to our community and new books are uploaded to our site daily - provided they comply to our quality standards.

In our daily newsletter, we keep our rapidly growing list of active subscribers up to date on the latest free and discounted eBooks that are available online. 

It is a reliable website to get e-books but they also have a section for audiobooks with a collection of over 1700 audiobooks. You can find many classic titles here, and Manybooks also displays the Flesch reading ease score for each book to tell you how easy it would is to read the book. 

Mitra Jyothi

Mitra Jyothi is aimed at empowering the visually impaired by supporting their educational needs, finding suitable jobs and making them independent enough to take charge of their lives. The organization’s most popular initiative is its Talking Book Library. Text books and books for general reading are given a voice by volunteers, and cassettes and CDs are recorded for circulation. Over 22,000 cassettes of more than 2000 books have been recorded till date. Mitra Jyothi set up its own recording studio to provide this service professionally. The organization is also extensively involved in Braille transcription and providing computer education to the visually impaired. 

Education Resource Centre

Mitra Jyothi provides accessible reading material to people with print disabilities. Our Education Resource Centre has close to 3000 books mainly spread across three languages, Kannada, English and Hindi and in various accessible formats such as e-Text, ePub, DAISY, mp3, Braille print and large font. Register to be a Mitra Jyothi Library Member to have access to a varied collection of text & reference books, magazines, fiction & non-fiction books.

• Talking and Digital Accessible Books Library

The Digital Accessible Books Production (DABP) and Talking Book Library (TBL) at Mitra Jyothi is a pioneer in the creation of Audio and Digital Accessible Books in south India for use by people with disabilities. Any library members can borrow any number of books from a collection of 3000+ books in Kannada, English and Hindi. Books are available in the following formats:

• eText: Readable by any screen reading software like NVDA

• ePub: Readable on devices like smartphones, tablets, computers, or e-readers. 

• DAISY: DAISY is a digital audio format that plays on audio players

• Braille: Hard copy prints in Braille

Hundreds of audiobooks are catalogued in the Audiobooks Library

• Mitra Jyothi’s Contributions to Sugamya Pustakalaya: Mitra Jyothi is now extending its reach to people online through Sugamya Pustakalaya. Thus, our Audio Books are now available online to beneficiaries! 

• Mitra Jyothi – Bookshare Accessible Book Project: Mitra Jyothi is a partner of Bookshare, and is the main contributor of books in Kannada to it

• Braille Transcription Centre

The Braille Transcription Centre converts school text books/educational books/magazines/specific articles/selected items of interest into electronic format and prints it in Braille format. With two NV Interpoint 55 Braille Embossers, the Braille Transcription Centre is able to handle large volume print jobs. The Braille Transcription Centre also does tactile printing in colour and embossing visiting cards in Braille.

• Braille Printing: We print in Braille in English and other Indian languages. Lakhs of pages have been printed since the commission of our Braille Transcription Centre in late 2015. 

• Tactile Embossing: The Braille Transcription Centre also has a tactile embosser that can print pictures and diagrams in tactile. 

• Visiting Card Embossing: The Braille Transcription Centre also has a visiting card embosser. 

• Publication from Education Resource Centre

Our publications include the following:

• Audio Publications

  • Sanchaya, monthly audio publications in Kannada, provides useful information on a variety of topics, including current affairs, health & hygiene, travel & culture, entertainment & sports and much more. More than 280 editions of Sanchaya have been produced over the past 20 years and so far and more than 5000 copies have been distributed. 

  • Spardha Shrunkhala, monthly audio publications in Kannada, helps prepare visually impaired students for job oriented competitive examinations. More than 3000 copies of Spardha Shrunkala have been distributed since it was started in 2014. 

  • Industry Mitra, quarterly audio publications in English, talks about one specific industry. From 2019, we have covered Banking, IT, Media & Entertainment, Tourism & Hospitality and Entrepreneurship sectors with more focus towards persons with disabilities. 

Many of these publications are available on Mitrajyothi Trust YouTube Channel.

• Braille Publications

  • Jnaana Samhitha, monthly magazine in Kannada Braille, contains various articles on science & technology, culture & lifestyle, health, humor, travel, cooking & recipes, short stories, inspirational stories and much more. 

• • Industry Mitra, quarterly magazine in English Braille, talks about one specific industry. From 2019, we have covered Banking, IT, Media & Entertainment, Tourism & Hospitality and Entrepreneurship sectors with more focus towards persons with disabilities. 

All subscribers will receive new issues of the magazines on a regular basis for the subscribed period in the form of audio CDs or Braille books which will be delivered to their homes via India Post. Click here to subscribe to our publications

• Mitra Jyothi – Radio Udaan

Mitra Jyothi is extending its reach to Visually Impaired in Northern part of the country with the support of Radio Udaan, an online radio station ‘produced and webcasted’ by the persons with visual challenges. 

National Atlas & Thematic Mapping Organization (NATMO)

Braille Tactile Atlas of India

The Union Minister for Science & Technology and Earth Sciences Dr. Harsh Vardhan released the Special Edition of Atlas for Visually Impaired (India) in English Braille. The Braille Atlas has been prepared by National Atlas and Thematic Mapping Organization (NATMO) under Department of Science & Technology.

Key Facts

• In the Braille Atlas, maps are raised and embossed with simple point and lines symbols to facilitate users to realize the location and area coverage easily in terms of distinguishable shapes and textures. The legend and reference is placed on the map in Braille script to navigate the map. 

• It is made using indigenously developed silk-screen painting technology. The legend and reference is also placed on map in Braille script to navigate map.

• About 20 maps on different themes of physical, socio-economic and cultural aspects of the country have been incorporated in it.

• The Atlas will be distributed free of cost to various schools across the country for educating the students with visual challenges.

• It was awarded National award for S&T intervention in empowering the physically challenged by the Prime Minister in January, 2017 at the Indian Science Congress held in Tirupati.

Sources

• World's first Braille Atlas for visually impaired persons released in New Delhi, GKToday, 2017

• NATMO Prepared Braille Atlas for Visually Impaired, GIS Resources, 2017

• Braille atlas to give new vision to students to study maps, ToI, 2017

• Created in 2017, it uses raised lines and the Braille system to empower visually challenged Indians with 84 detail-rich pages, Outlook Traveler, 2020

National Federation for the Blind of India (NFB)

Books

National Library Service (NLS)

NLS is a free braille and talking book library service for people with vision impairments or physical disabilities that prevent them from holding traditional books. The free service works through local libraries that send NLS talking or braille books and magazines via mail straight to the home or via instant downloads (Requires login). Plus, they also provide the easy-to-use playback equipment designed for people with low/no vision.

NLS offers

• Braille or audio book formats

• Free mailing to your door or instant downloads

• A wide variety of the most current reading material, including best sellers, biographies, fictional works, how-to books, magazines, and music scores

• BARD mobile app for download and playback anywhere: Braille and Audio Reading Download (BARD): Requires login

NLS Catalogue (Does not Require login)

• Text-Only Search (Quick)

• Voyager Search (Screen Reader)

• Accessible Catalogues: These contain listings on specified topics and are themselves produced in alternative formats of large print, braille and audio.

• For Younger Readers (2012-13, 2014-15)

• Gentle Romances (2015) [HTML], [PDF]

• Mysteries for Younger Readers (2012)

• Westerns (2011)

• Bibles and Other Sacred Writings in Special Media: This includes bibles and sacred texts of world religions in a variety of languages and versions. Commentaries, concordances, liturgies, prayer books, hymnals, and magazines are also listed. Materials are available in audio, braille, digital text, and large print. The guide has four sections.

• Part 1 (Scope Notes): Describes religious texts from many faiths and traditions, including various versions of the Bible.

• Part 2 (Materials in the NLS Collection): Presents braille and talking books available through the NLS and Library of Congress (LoC). This free service is available through a network of cooperating libraries to residents of the United States, or American citizens living abroad, who have a visual impairment or physical disability that prevents them from reading regular print or using printed materials. 

• Part 3 (Sources of Special-Format Materials): Lists other sources of religious materials in special formats. 

• Part 4 (Indexes): Materials and providers by subject, media, version and translation, and language.

• Magazines in Special Media is a descriptive listing of periodicals and newsletters available to people in the United States who are unable to use regular print materials. Periodicals are produced in a variety of formats, including digital audio, digital download, digital text, ebraille, large print, and press braille. Not all periodicals are offered in all formats.

• Part 1: Magazines available through NLS

• Part 2: Magazines produced by other agencies

• Appendix: Contact information for sources other than NLS network libraries

NewFixTion (New Fiction)

Get Free Fiction ebooks from New Fiction. They are fun and mobile.

NOOK Audiobooks

NOOK Audiobooks is the collection of audiobooks from Barnes & Noble. Thousands of bestselling audiobooks are just a tap away – all at great prices and no subscription required! 

Open Culture

Open Culture wants us to learn today. The site does more than provide a wide array of audiobooks: It offers free cultural and educational media to whomever wants it. You can find free online educational courses on everything from economics to philosophy and even demography to guided meditations, textbooks, and movies

• 1,700 Free Online Courses from Top Universities (775.2k shares)

• 200 Online Certificate & Microcredential Programs from Leading Universities & Companies

• Online Degrees & Mini Degrees: Explore Masters, Mini Masters, Bachelors & Mini Bachelors from Top Universities

• 1,000 Free Audio Books: Download Great Books for Free (261.3k shares)

• 1,150 Free Movies Online: Great Classics, Indies, Noir, Westerns, etc. (388.6k shares)

• The 150 Best Podcasts to Enrich Your Mind (2.5k shares)

• 200 Free Kids Educational Resources: Video Lessons, Apps, Books, Websites & More (30.9k shares)

• 800 Free eBooks for iPad, Kindle & Other Devices (784k shares)

• Learn 48 Languages Online for Free: Spanish, Chinese, English & More (152.5k shares)

Overdrive 

Overdrive helps users gain access to free audiobooks and encourages them to explore their public libraries; the site partners with local schools and libraries to bring its catalog of audiobooks to as many people as possible. 

Its apps, Libby and Sora, make collaboration.

Project Gutenberg

As the oldest digital library online, Project Gutenberg has been working to archive as many books as possible since its founding in 1971. 

The site's catalog now consists of over 60,000 free ebooks downloadable as mp3 files. That number was made possible by the site's practice of approving 99% of the requests it receives to turn books into audiobooks or ebooks. 

Scribd Audiobooks

Enjoy popular audiobooks when you subscribe - Get unlimited* access to books, audiobooks, magazines, sheet music, and podcasts for only $8.99/month.

Saksham Digital Library

Accessible books and magazines are important means for bringing the printed world to persons with visual impairment. It impacts their education, employment and lifelong learning opportunities. Given India’s diversity, it is also important to provide accessible content not just in English, but also in other regional languages.

Saksham helps to ensure this and converts print books into accessible formats such as EPUB, DAISY and Audio. These accessible books ensure that students and parents are able to use unique navigational features allowing them to access the same printed books not only chapter wise but also section, sub-section, and page wise!

We work with diverse stakeholders – school and colleges, publishers, and persons with visual impairment – to make this happen. Once completed, the accessible books are uploaded onto Sugamya Pustakalaya, a dedicated national online library for persons with print disabilities.

Production of Accessible Books

Print books are converted into accessible format like EPUB3.0, Braille or DAISY. 

Content are selected based on:

1. Request from users

2. Request from schools, colleges, and other education institutions with blind students

3. We at Saksham also select courses from different Education Boards / Universities / Colleges with high enrolment of visually impaired students, ensuring conversion of all text books and reference materials into accessible format. 

Our collection has various genres including books for competitive exam, fiction and non-fiction, etc. 

4. We make sure students have access to the latest books and for this requests are also taken up for conversion through Sugamya Pustakalaya

Digitization Marathon

It is a unique way to create large number of accessible books in a limited time. It’s a full day activity which can be done in any school or corporate organization by the participating students and employees. A first-of-its-kind initiated by Saksham, it allows users to proof-read books and support book conversion while having fun and generating awareness about the needs of their visually impaired peers. 

The first Digitization Marathon was conducted in Tagore International School, Vasant Kunj, Delhi. The students converted 1800+ pages in a one-day Digitization Marathon winning the school a Limca Book of Records 2019!

Useful Apps

Saksham makes recommendation for over 30 third-party apps.

Scribl

Buy the audiobook on Scribl and you get the ebook for free. One audiobook plus one ebook, for one low price.

That way you can listen during your daily run or commute, then read the ebook at night; or just have the book available on your device for reference. As readers ourselves, that’s the way we like our books.

All paid titles feature Scribl's CrowdPricing ($CP), where prices are set by fans and even the highest prices are a great deal. It's the fairest pricing on the Internet. If you're looking for self-published audiobooks, Scribl has you covered.

You may play in from Android or iOS app too.

Podiobooks.com

For over a decade, we were the backbone for hundreds of free serialized audiobooks from some amazing authors, giving you content you couldn’t get anyplace else. 

Podiobooks.com has merged with Scribl. All of the old books from Podiobooks.com are now here and still available on iTunes, Google Play, and just about everywhere else you find podcasts. 

Spotify's Audiobooks Playlist

Once you've downloaded the Spotify app on Android or iOS, audiobooks are at your fingertips. The playlist is entitled "Audiobooks" and each of its 122 "songs" is actually a book (or part of one, depending on length). 

Like the free music on Spotify, the audiobooks playlist doesn't cost a thing, as long as you don't mind sitting through the occasional ad.

StoryNory

The site offers free audio stories for kids, including fairytales, original stories, myths, poems, music, history and audiobooks all read beautifully by professional actors.

Storynory brings you an audio story every week. Each one is beautifully read. Let us beguile you with classic fairy tales, poems, myths, adventures and romance. And you will love our original stories including Katie, Astropup, and Wicked Uncle.

• Fairy Tales: Classic fairy tales by Hans Christian Andersen, The Brothers Grimm, Charles Perrault, Aesop and others. This is where frogs chat to princesses, wolves huff and puff, and gingerbread men run away.

• Classic Authors: Stories and poems by classic authors including Lewis Carroll, Rudyard Kipling. Oscar Wilde and Charles Dickens, Edward Lear and others.

• Original Stories: Many of our kids’ stories are exclusive to Storynory. We have stories about frogs, princesses, pirates, witches, birds, dogs, and people.

• Myths and World Stories: Myths of Greece, Rome, ancient Norse legends, and stories from around the world.

• Small Stories: A selection of stories that are short and sweet and should appeal to younger children. You’ll find some of the classic fairy tales and fables here.

• Educational Stories: Bible stories, King Arthur, Saints, Robin Hood – and stories that enhance vocabulary.

Thought Audio

Thought Audio prides itself on providing the gift of knowledge through free audiobook versions of classic titles, philosophic works

YouTube: Audiobooks

• How I listen to audiobooks online for free [surprisingly easy!]

• Download any Audio Book / E-Book for Free | UNLIMITED | #FreeAudioBooks

• How to get FREE AUDIOBOOKS // Indian Booktuber

• #freeaudiobooks

• Digital Libraries for Children’s Stories, The Kahani Project