Transforming accessibility of academic content

The world’s largest university press, Oxford University Press (OUP), announces a new agreement with the Royal National Institute of Blind People (RNIB)—one of the UK’s leading sight loss charities and the largest community of blind and partially sighted people. As part of the agreement, OUP’s Academic frontlist collection is now available on RNIB Bookshare, a service run by RNIB that instantly provides a wide variety of accessible and adaptive file types for learners with a print disability. OUP’s backlist collection will be uploaded to the platform, which has over 900,000 books, at a later date.

The agreement will be transformative for the approximately 33,000 learners with a print disability currently supported by RNIB Bookshare, including those with dyslexia or who are blind or partially sighted. By integrating OUP’s Academic content through reading devices or applications—including DAISY, Dolphin, and ePub—users of RNIB Bookshare will have access to more academic materials, contributing to a more inclusive educational environment. The new service is currently available for UK users, with plans for further regions to be included in the near future.

The agreement is the second major integration of OUP’s content on RNIB Bookshare. It follows the addition of OUP’s educational content which has been available on the service since 2016 and continues to be regularly updated.

Speaking on the collaboration, Julia Mielish, Discovery Working Group Manager at OUP, says: 'All learners regardless of disability should be able to access key academic and education materials. Increasing the range of OUP content on RNIB Bookshare is an important step in helping fulfil this important objective and is aligned with our mission to create world-class academic and educational resources and make them available as widely as possible.'

Rochelle Davis-Pretsell, RNIB Bookshare Team Leader, says: 'We are delighted that OUP’s collection is now part of RNIB Bookshare. It is so important that all print disabled students, including those with a vision impairment are supported. RNIB Bookshare opens up the world of reading in education for millions of people by giving them access to materials that allow for an entirely independent learning experience.'