SAGE Publishing

“The RNIB Bookshare initiative is the single most important innovation within the accessibility community.” (Huw, SAGE Publishing)

SAGE Publishing were one of the first publishers to support RNIB Bookshare. They were quick to join with us, sharing their files with our print disabled learners soon after our launch as Load2Learn in 2011. They have led the way for many of other publishers and were one of the first to directly upload their titles to the site and more recently, to set up a direct feed to automatically add their titles in bulk to RNIB Bookshare.

“We have happily reaped the benefits of our involvement.”

This publisher provides a lot of academic titles for further and higher education, and so is a key publisher for our customers and learners. At time of writing (June 2018) RNIB Bookshare has over 8,100 SAGE titles in an accessible electronic format available for print disabled learners to download. 

“Our customers and librarians now have a fast, secure and centralised source for all SAGE digital content.”

RNIB Bookshare is passionate about accessibility starting with our publishers; and that that it is not a fix that we do to their books. Our publishers send us electronic files of their titles to share on our site for educators and print disabled learners to use under the terms of the Copyright and Rights in Performances (Disability) Regulations 2014. RNIB Bookshare is a free service to UK education providers.

“RNIB processes thousands of requests per year on our behalf and their dedication has greatly increased our efficiency and service levels at no cost. It is a pure win-win situation for both us and our customers.”

SAGE, trialled our file uploading facilities ensuring that we could make the process for publishers as easy as possible, as well as meeting the needs of our print disabled customers.

“The delivery of our content files to the RNIB is a seamless, automated process and the partnership has allowed us to scale our content delivery in order to meet growing market demands.”

Having a strong commitment and focus to providing accessible resources, SAGE Publishingwon the Accessible Books Consortium International Excellence Award for Accessible Publishing at the London Book Fair 2017.

“At SAGE we passionately believe in creating a level playing field for our audience. All our readers should be able to access our content at the same time. Our partnership with the RNIB has ensured this goal has become a reality.”

“There are many barriers to accessibility for publishers. As we all seek to disable these barriers the RNIB Bookshare initiative is the single most important innovation within the accessibility community.”

A final word from Huw at SAGE;

“We are proud to work with the enthusiastic and knowledgeable team at the RNIB and recommend that all publishers make their content available through the platform.”