The company then worked with several colleges to give out Kindles this fall with digital versions of their textbooks on them.
The Federation for the Blind sued one of the schools that participated in this pilot program–Arizona State University–in June, along with the American Council of the Blind and a blind ASU student, arguing it was discriminating against blind students. That case is ongoing.
The group also filed complaints with the Department of Justice against five other schools that are participating in the Kindle trial with Amazon. Wisconsin and Syracuse are not among those schools.
Ken Frazier, director of Wisconsin-Madison’s library system, said the library bought 20 Kindle DX devices for use in a history class this fall. Though he’s not sure how many blind students are at his school, he said many students have difficulties reading texts for various reasons, such as learning disabilities.
“Our experience is that when you make technology accessible, everybody benefits,” he said.