Steve Kelley
Have you heard? The Amazon Echo smart speaker, just got smarter—over a million books smarter. The world’s largest online library of accessible ebooks, Bookshare, has a new Echo skill in beta, Bookshare Reader and it puts your books in Alexa’s hands to read out loud. Remember when we talked about “Killer Apps?” In my humble opinion, the ability to read over a million books on the Amazon Echo, a device that costs as little as $30, with the new Bookshare Skill, may well qualify.
Getting Started with Bookshare Reader
If you’re not familiar, Bookshare is a subscription service specifically for individuals with a print disability, verified by a doctor or other professional like a vision rehab therapist. If you are a student, there is no charge for the service. Otherwise, the annual subscription fee is $50, which allows you to download up to 100 accessible ebooks a month, at no additional cost (here’s a quick tip: with a free registration at Hadley.edu, you also qualify at the student rate at Bookshare). Some books on Bookshare are in audio format, but most are electronic text, which is read by the screen reader on your phone, computer, or a device like the Victor Reader Stream. These electronic text files can also be converted to audio files and downloaded from the website or sent to the Bookshare Reader. The Bookshare Skill adds a whole new level of convenience and ease to reading Bookshare books. To get started, you will first need a subscription to Bookshare, by completing the application online or over the phone at 650-352-0198. Next, you will need an Amazon Echo, and these come in a wide variety of styles, the least expensive being the Echo Dot. As part of the process of setting up the Amazon Echo the first time, you’ll download the Alexa app, or go to alexa.amazon.com, to put in your Amazon username and password. Once in the Alexa app, either on the computer, tablet, or smartphone, just select Skills from the menu and do a search for Bookshare Reader. At the time of this review, the search results return Bookshare Reader [beta]. Select the skill, then open the Settings. Select the Link Account link and put in your Bookshare username and password. You’re good to go now! To open the skill, just say, “Alexa, open the Bookshare Reader skill and follow the prompts.
Adding Books
The first time the Bookshare reader opens, you’ll hear, “Welcome to Bookshare Reader, it looks like you don't have any audio books available to read. Go to the Bookshare website and add books to your Amazon Alexa Reading List or say, ‘Get My History’ from your recent downloads." There are two ways to add books to the Bookshare Reader, by responding with the phrase, “Get my history,” which will add your most recent downloads to other devices as a list of available books. Alternatively, from the Bookshare website you can add books to the Amazon Alexa Reading List for your account. Select the link, My Reading Lists, from the Bookshare home page, and then select the link, Amazon Alexa, which will open the list where you can add books to the Bookshare Reader skill. With a list of books added to the Bookshare Reader, when it opens, there is a prompt asking if you want to continue reading the last book you read, if you’d like to select another title, or get a list of available books. If you have recent downloads, these can also be added to the list by using the command, “Get my history.” Your most recent Bookshare downloads are listed and you can choose which of these books to add to your reading list. At this time, it’s not possible to do a search for titles using the Bookshare Reader, without first adding it from within the Bookshare website, or choosing It from recent downloads.
Reading a Book
One of the idiosyncrasies noted during the review is there is some inconsistency with opening the Bookshare Reader skill. Sometimes it opened with “Alexa, launch the Bookshare Reader,” other times it required changing the verbal prompt—instead of the word “launch,” “open,” or “enable,” got the Bookshare Reader to open. It opened eventually, using one of these three commands. Before settling in with a book, check and adjust the reading speed, if needed. It’s important to note that the reading rate can’t be changed, on the fly, while reading. Reading must be stopped, or adjustments made before reading begins. Reading speed can be set anywhere from 50% to 300%. Reading speed can also be set using a percentage, for example, “Alexa read at 150%.” Also, the commands, “Read faster,” “Read slower,” and “What’s the reading speed,” can be used to find the best reading rate. It seems that Alexa reads a Bookshare Reader book in much the same way it plays an Audible book, or a podcast, by playing an audio file. The Bookshare audio file is processed from the original electronic text of the book. As a result, the book is read by a human-sounding text-to-speech engine. This writer was unable to find a way to select alternative voices, during the review.
Bookshare’s instructions, Read with Smart Speaker, indicate that only books with an audio option are suitable for the Bookshare Reader. All the books selected during the review had an audio option in the Download dropdown menu, so it is unclear how many books are actually without an audio option, and unavailable. In one instance a book added to the Alexa Reading List on the Bookshare website was not immediately available to play on Bookshare Reader. When selected shortly after being added to the list, Bookshare Reader responded that it was not yet available and was being converted to audio. A few minutes later, it was available and ready to read.
Two verbal prompts that will provide a quick synopsis of the available reading commands are: “Alexa, tutorial,” or “Alexa help,” and “Alexa, shortcuts.” The tutorial is a brief, quick start guide, and the shortcuts, reviews the commands that can be used while reading. These include:
“Alexa pause,” to pause reading. Note, “Alexa stop,” stops the reading and exits the Bookshare Reader. “Alexa resume.” “Alexa skip,” or “Alexa next,” to go to the next section in the book. “Alexa previous,” or “Alexa back,” to go back to a previous section of the book. During the review, it’s worth noting that there were times the commands to skip a section failed to work. For example, in the preface of one book, the prompt, “Alexa next,” just returned the reader again and again to the beginning of the preface. The only alternative was to read through the preface until the next section started.
Final Thoughts
Yes, sometimes it took several tries to get the Bookshare Reader skill to open when using the correct prompt, and alternatives needed to be tried. Moving through sections worked in some places, and not in others. Is it too forgiving to give the skill a “pass?” Afterall, it is still in beta. It would be great to be able to skip forward or backward by time intervals, set a reading timer, and add bookmarks> That said, none of these features is currently available on the Audible skill either. One of the greatest benefits of this skill, may be for readers less comfortable with the other gadgets or apps used to access Bookshare books. For those readers less comfortable with the tech, a family member, professional, or even the local librarian might be willing to add titles to a Bookshare member’s Alexa list, enabling the end user to read with voice commands on the Amazon Echo. Yes, the beta gets a “pass,” while Bookshare irons out the kinks and adds features…and yes, the Bookshare Reader will be a “killer app.”
This article is made possible in part by generous funding from the James H. and Alice Teubert Charitable Trust, Huntington, West Virginia.
