Nanjiba, A University Graduate

Suffering in silence

During her second year at Goldsmiths University of London Nanjiba had trouble accessing her key readings resources.

"I could easily access the resources I needed on my university's virtual learning portal, yet I still had trouble reading them."

The problem was that the resources were just scanned images of the text for the chapters she was required to read, this was the case for several different books.
Text to speech software can't understand text that has been scanned as an image. As a result, Nanjiba struggled.

"I spent the majority of my first term suffering in silence, reading all my resources by eye, getting tired, frustrated and spending a lot of time trying to read it all. Doing my course reading was easier said than done."

Finding out about RNIB Bookshare

Nanjiba decided to talk to staff at her university and met the library liaison staff who discussed her difficulties and needs with her. They introduced her to RNIB Bookshare.

"At the time Bookshare was my saviour, after joining the website and finding the texts I needed I was able to download PDF text versions which were compatible with my text to speech software."

She said that she did have some difficulties with logging in, and initially opening the books once they'd been downloaded.

"Thankfully the RNIB team were very helpful and these issues were easily resolved."

Make your education experience easier!

Through using RNIB Bookshare Nanjiba told us that she was able to manage her workload like others on her course, without hurting her eyes.

"It's a great resource which should make your education experience easier. Give it a go, it might be the very thing you didn't know you needed!"

(2018)