Accessible stock

Suppliers of Braille, Audio, and Large Print for Library Stock.

If you’re interested in purchasing braille, specialised audiobooks or large print for blind and partially sighted people to use, please see a range of suppliers below.

ClearVision Project

ClearVision is a postal lending library of children’s books designed to be shared by visually impaired and sighted children and adults. They lend books all across the UK and Ireland.

Their books all have braille, print and pictures. This allows children with little or no sight to share books with their sighted friends and family, and adult braille readers to enjoy stories with sighted children. There are over 14,000 books in the collection, catering for children from birth until they’re independent readers.

Anybody in the UK or Ireland who needs children’s books with both braille and print text is welcome to join the ClearVision library. The books are sent directly to your address and there is no postage to pay. Membership is free to families; organisations such as schools, libraries and sensory support services pay a heavily subsidised annual fee of £50.

Contact them on 020 8789 9575 or [email protected].

Access2Books

Access2books is a charity that produces and publishes high quality early years’ books in dual format – giant print (75pt) & braille – with illustrations. The design enables braille or large print readers to read without obscuring the text or illustrations; and therefore, gives children and adults the opportunity to read together, forming both educational and social relationships – the biggest contributing factor to children’s early years’ learning of language, confidence and social interaction.

The most likely users of this format are adults or children with macular conditions, maybe cataracts and other sight conditions that affect the macular and therefore reading. Another group is people with learning disabilities who require giant print and illustrations to support their reading. The design will also assist people with conditions that affect co-ordination and dexterity.

You can get free trial packs for libraries for up to 3 months. You can contact them on 07964510491 or [email protected]. 

DK Braille

A limited range of younger children’s books in braille and large print, designed to be read with parents to promote the love of reading and assist with education.

You can purchase this directly through Dorking Kindersley or the RNIB online shop.

If you’d like to get in touch with them, please email [email protected].

Adult Books in Braille

There are very few places you can purchase adult braille in the UK marketplace, unless you buy it second hand and even then, you can sometimes not be sure of the style or standard of the embossing, So, we would recommend either the library service signing up to the RNIB on behalf of a customer or directing the braille customer to the RNIB direct. 

To register, they just need to call the helpline 0303 123 9999 or email them at [email protected].

Calibre

Calibre Audio is a fantastic collection of over 13,000 audiobooks. Every day they send out 1,700 books to their members.

Since 1974, Calibre Audio has brought the joy of audiobooks to anyone struggling to access print, so they can immerse themselves in wonderful stories, memorable biographies or travel the world in their mind.

Everyone has the legal right to equal access to information, yet only 7% of print books are converted to audio, the format needed for many disabled people. For young people, this has serious implications for their ability to learn and develop, and for the elderly, socially isolated, or disadvantaged, coming to terms with the loss of their sight, health and mobility, losing a lifelong love of the written word can be a real blow.

At Calibre, they believe in social inclusion and the wider benefits that reading brings, combating social isolation, increasing confidence and independence.

Calibre Audio is free to join for anyone who has a print disability and they often supply library reading groups with audio books.

Contact them on 01296 432 339 or [email protected].

Ulverscroft Group

Ulverscroft are specialist in making reading accessible and have championed large print and audio books for years.

They are experienced at working with libraries to supply them with physical audio and large print, along with digital eBook and eAudiobooks.

The contact for London, The Midlands, Southern England, South Wales & The Channel Islands is Roxane Coetzer on [email protected].

The contact for Northern England, North Wales, Scotland, Northern Ireland & Republic of Ireland is David Mellin on [email protected].

Ingram Content

Ingram are leading the way with physical Large Print titles in Adults, Children’s, Fiction and Non-Fiction. iPage is Ingram’s own wholesale platform for bookstores, libraries, and retailers. They currently have 28K LP titles available to order in the UK and the iPage system gives you the flexibility to look up LP titles by different criteria i.e., audience, language etc.

You can open an iPage account here: https://getstarted.ingramcontent.com/

They work regularly with publishers, so if libraries we’re looking to refresh their children’s and adult’s Large Print collection and wanted a specific title that wasn’t on there, just get in touch the account manager Laura Dolan on [email protected].

Guide Dogs – CustomEyes Books

Guide Dogs don’t believe a vision impairment should stop you, or  any children, from knowing the joy of reading. That’s why CustomEyes Books in large print give them the chance to read a real book, just like everybody else.

From Dr Seuss to Shakespeare, from inspirational fiction to educational textbooks, they have over 4,200 large print books available – and counting. Each one is custom made, with font size, spacing, colour and more all tailored to the child’s individual needs. 

CustomEyes Books for a child with sight loss means children and young people can have exactly the same books as their friends and classmates. This not only helps them keep up at school, they can share books with friends too.

If the child is not comfortable using a magnifier, or gets tired using a screen, they can pick up a real book and still enjoy reading and learning.
Becoming a CustomEyes Books member is easy and completely free. And thanks to a generous Guide Dogs subsidy, all large print books are available at the recommended retail price, regardless of format.

Contact them on 0118 983 8275 or [email protected].