meritbadge booklets now in accessible formats for blind and

[dbeaver888]

Hello all,

I am new to this forum but am very glad to be here. I have been involved with Cub and Boy scouting for approximately 23 years.
I have an announcement to make that I believe will be of very exciting interest to blind and dislexic scouts and scouters.

I work with a non-profit organization called Bookshare.org.

I have been working with a scout in the troop I help with on his Eagle project. I cooperation with the Scout National office and with Bookshare.org we have made all the Eagle required meritbadge booklets and several elective booklets available in an accessible format. This is the actual text of the booklet not just the requirements list.

We went with Bookshare.org since they already have the infrastructure for supporting the legal requirements for this kind of effort. We were able to meet all copyright laws.

If any blind or dislexic scouts or scouters are interested they can go to Bookshare.org and find the requirements for accessing these booklets. It will require signing u with Bookshare.org and obtaining a legal form stating that the person is either legally blind or dislexic. There is also a cost involved but it is modest.

As time goes on I/we will be adding more of the elective booklets to the Bookshare.org collection.

If anyone has questions you can contact me by emailing my username dbeaver888.
Have fun and good scouting.

[scoutaholic]

I'm not sure what 'accessible format' means, but I imagine that is an audio?

That is great that 26 MB books are available in another way.

I'm not blind or dyslexic, but I can image some value to an audio format for other uses. Is there any chance of getting them available to people without certified 'special needs'?

[FieldSports]

WoW Diversity rules!! Great to see the opportunity spread to more Scouts. Keep up the great work.

[mt_goodrich]

I'm not sure what 'accessible format' means, but I imagine that is an audio?

That is great that 26 MB books are available in another way.

I'm not blind or dyslexic, but I can image some value to an audio format for other uses. Is there any chance of getting them available to people without certified 'special needs'?

I have a Scout who isn't blind or dyslexic, but I think he would greatly benefit from this if in an audio format. He has a hard time with reading and I think if he had a regular book and an audio version, he would do better. Great kid, but one of those situations where both his parents are practically illiterate and reading just wasn't promoted in the home.

[Quailman]

It sounds great!

But... with all I hear about how an Eagle project needs to benefit an organization or group other than BSA, did this qualify as an Eagle Project?

[smtroop168]

If this was an ESP, my guess is that the benefitting organization is bookshare.org and oh by the way we did some BSA books.

Great idea for those scouts that need this done to help them.

[dbeaver888]

Accessible means that it is in a format which blind or dislexic person can use. For blind persons it generally means plain text or Daisy formats. Daisy is a specialized format that many software programs have been developed to use. Most computer software and some hardware devices have been developed which read the info to the person with a computer generated voice. There are also devices which present the info in braille.

Bookshare.org does not provide MP3 files but users are able to generate their own MP3 files if they have the technology to do so.

I'm not sure what 'accessible format' means, but I imagine that is an audio?

That is great that 26 MB books are available in another way.

I'm not blind or dyslexic, but I can image some value to an audio format for other uses. Is there any chance of getting them available to people without certified 'special needs'?

[dbeaver888]

Yes, it did qualify as an Eagle project. The benefiting organization was considered to be Bookshare.org. However, they did recognize that many of the persons benefitting would also be scouts/scouters and also very many individuals not yet/currently affiliated with scouting. All schools have special access to Bookshare.org if they choose to take advantage of it and many use Bookshare.org materials as teaching materials.

By the way, this young man just calculated the hours of his project and it totaled up to be 514 hours. When we started into this project we never imagined how much work and time it would take for people to learn to do the clean up of the files after the booklets were scanned. It sure was fun though.

It sounds great!

But... with all I hear about how an Eagle project needs to benefit an organization or group other than BSA, did this qualify as an Eagle Project?

[dbeaver888]

Hi Mike,

Unfortunately the copyright laws are written such that this kind of service can only be afforded to those with certifiable disabilities. I have also known boys with similar situations. I found it disheartening that we could provide so little services to them.
My only suggestion is that perhaps someone within your troop or council would have an interest in helping this young man learn to read better or else maybe read the materials to him. Helping him to read better would obviously help him in his future as I am sure you are aware. It is so tough to overcome the failings in parenting.


I wish you all the luck.

I'm not sure what 'accessible format' means, but I imagine that is an audio?

That is great that 26 MB books are available in another way.

I'm not blind or dyslexic, but I can image some value to an audio format for other uses. Is there any chance of getting them available to people without certified 'special needs'?

I have a Scout who isn't blind or dyslexic, but I think he would greatly benefit from this if in an audio format. He has a hard time with reading and I think if he had a regular book and an audio version, he would do better. Great kid, but one of those situations where both his parents are practically illiterate and reading just wasn't promoted in the home.