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E-books and Accessible Format Books: Finding and Using E-books at QMU

A short guide to understanding e-books and other accessible format books

Accessible format book readers

RNIB bookshare logo

The Royal National Institute of Blind People (RNIB) provides accessible format academic books through its RNIB Bookshare Education Collection to all print disabled students. 

Accessible formats include: Daisy audio (with or without images), MP3, Braille (BRF), Epub, PDF and Word (Docx).

The registration process is managed through QMU however, please note that this is not a QMU service therefore technical assistance with book titles can only be requested from the RNIB website. Click here to find out more and register with this service.

The books provided by the RNIB are available in various formats. Click here to find out your book reader options.

Ebook Central accessibility features

Most accessibility features on ebook platforms are available by default. However, you may sometimes need to change the settings to make ebooks compatible with screen readers. The video above shows how you can turn on accessibility features on the ProQuest Ebook Central Platform using a screenreader.

VLEbooks

For ebooks on the VLEbooks platform you can click Edit Accessibility Settings on the left hand menu to toggle the following settings on and off:

  • Large font
  • High contrast
  • Highlight links
  • Underline links
  • Greyscale colour mode
  • Use dyslexic font
  • Prevent popup auto close

The VLeBooks platform supports PDF eBooks which are formatted to read online and support the accessibility functionality within the VLeBooks Reader.

PDF ebooks have a fixed page size that may not work well on all devices or screen sizes/zoom levels. PDF eBooks are compatible with screen readers using an ASCII text layer.