An afternoon at Bookshare.org

Last Friday I volunteered as part of Mozilla Service Week at Bookshare.org, a non-profit who’s goal is to make the world of print accessible to people with disabilities. We went to their headquarters in downtown Palo Alto and spent the afternoon watching “books die” (aka their spines getting eaten by the machine), learning about the different parts of the org., and transcribing children’s books online.

My book was Tamar and the Tiger, which is the story of a little girl and her dad in search of the questionably extinct Tasmanian Tiger. I spent some time in Tasmania when I studied in Australia, so the book tugged on a few heart strings. It was a not-so-secret hope of mine to run into my own Tasmanian Tiger, which has become a somewhat mythical figure on the island. A marsupial tiger?!? Yes, please.

I couldn’t help but notice how genuinely happy everyone at Bookshare.org seemed to be. I’ll likely continue to volunteer beyond Moz Service Week, which can even be done from home. Visit their site to learn more.