Thank you to Hachette for being a contributing partner to Bookshare.org

Thank you so much for partnering up with Bookshare.org.

Bookshare has opened up a world to me which was almost impassable, the world of the printed word, books, novels and news has been exhausting to tread until I became a member of Bookshare.org. The printed word in today's internet has been a breeze because of ReadPlease which I found on-line in 2001. Most of my published reading was restricted to the Gutenberg Project and whatever book I was really intent on reading I would have to do the following:

1. Scrape the glue off the binder then cut the binder.
2. Scan the book into PaperPort then process the scanned book with Optical Character Recognition (OCR) it into a text rich format, then save in Microsoft Word.
3. Then read with ReadPlease

When it came to reading the Wall Street Journal, which my wife bought for me with expiring air miles, I would scan the paper headlines and then cut out the article and then do the same as the above process for reading a book and read with ReadPlease.

Then a Librarian told me about Bookshare, and in November of 2007 I joined. This technological oriented Company provided new text to speech software, which took my reading capability to a new level. Read:OutLoud Beta and the Victor Readers have given me the ability to read a book at work and then use ReadPlease for proofing letters, email, contracts and other work oriented reading. (Attached are three articles which I wrote, one being a talk I was asked to present at the Florida Council for Exceptional Children, given in Oct. 2008)

For Hachette to come on board as a pro-active publisher, all I can tell you is THANK YOU, I am grateful. It is my hope Textbooks break the iron clad stance and go green, to put education on the cutting edge as you all have at Hachette.

Please thank your team for me, a 49 year old father, and husband with the "gift of dyslexia", who for the first time is on the edge of my reading chair.