Education Department taps Benetech to build digital library
California-based non-profit Benetech has received its third grant from the US Department of Education. The $42.5m grant will be used to support Benetech's Bookshare initiative, which brings digital versions of texts to disabled readers and is free to students, teachers and school districts. Benetech said that more than 500,000 readers currently use the service, and aims to increase its reach by 200,000 with the funds.

BENETECH, a Palo Alto, Calif.-based nonprofit that “build[s] software for social good,” according to its website, has received a five-year, $42.5 million grant from the U.S. Department of Education. That check will go to support Bookshare, an online library of digital books that are accessible to learners with print reading disabilities such as dyslexia and blindness. More than 500,000 students currently use Bookshare, claims the nonprofit, in districts including Los Angeles Unified School District.

This is ED’s third grant to Bookshare, and the funding helps keep the digital library free for U.S. students, educators and school districts. (Others can pay $50 a year or $6 to $10 per digital book.) Benetech aims to use the funding to reach another 200,000 students.

TechCrunch has an exhaustive look at Benetech founder Jim Fruchterman and the origins of Bookshare in a four-thousand word profile.