Equal and not separate Reading Rights

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Stack of books with a chain around them

Reading Rights Coalition 2009 Advocacy Update

As technology advances and more books move from hard-copy print to electronic formats, people with print disabilities deserve the opportunity to enjoy access to books on an equal basis with those who can read print.

People with print disabilities cannot effectively read print because of a visual, physical, perceptual, developmental, cognitive, or learning disability.

No Need for Greed
We Want to Read!

We represent 15 million 30 million Americans who cannot read print because of blindness, dyslexia, spinal cord injury, and other print disabilities.  We include school children, the elderly, professionals, college students, returning veterans, and your neighbors, family members and friends.  We want to buy books.  We have fought very hard for many years to have equal access to technology and information.  For the first time, now that the Amazon Kindle 2 offers text-to-speech, which will read a book aloud, we can purchase and enjoy books like everybody else.  Sadly, the Authors Guild does not support equal access for us.   The Guild has told us that to read their books with text-to-speech we must either submit to a special registration system (that not all may qualify for and that would expose disability information to all future eBook reader manufacturers) and prove our disabilities -- or pay extra.   The Guild’s position is contrary to the principle of equal opportunity for all and discriminates against millions of people with print disabilities.

Right to Read OVERDUEPlease support us by joining our informational protests and Sign the Petition: We Want to Read.

View more what you can do as an individual
to Take Action NOW !

Reading Rights Coalition Members

Please use the Contact Us form if your organization wants to join this effort.

  1. AbilityNet

  2. American Association of People with Disabilities

  3. American Council of the Blind

  4. American Foundation for the Blind

  5. Arc of the United States

  6. Association of Blind Citizens

  7. Association on Higher Education And Disability

  8. Bazelon Center for Mental Health Law

  9. Burton Blatt Institute

  10. DAISY Consortium

  11. Disability 411

  12. Disability Rights Legal Center newest!

  13. Disability Rights Education and Defense Fund

  14. IDEAL Group, Inc.

  15. International Center for Disability Resources on the Internet

  16. International Dyslexia Association

  17. International Dyslexia Association – New York Branch

  18. Jewish Guild for the Blind

  19. Knowledge Ecology International

  20. Learning Disabilities Association of America

  21. Lighthouse International

  22. LightHouse – San Francisco

  23. National Association of Law Students with Disabilities

  24. National Disability Rights Network

  25. National Federation of the Blind

  26. National Industries for the Blind newest!

  27. NISH (formerly National Institute for the Severely Handicapped)

  28. National Spinal Cord Injury Association

  29. Smart Kids with Learning Disabilities

  30. United Cerebral Palsy

  31. Xavier Society for the Blind

  32. National Organization of Parents of Blind Children