Celebrating 10 Years of International Books

The National Library Service for the Blind and Print Disabled (NLS) is pleased to announce that on Wednesday, September 13, from 1 to 2 p.m. EDT, the Library of Congress will hold a virtual event to celebrate the 10th anniversary of the signing of the Marrakesh Treaty to Facilitate Access to Published Works for Persons Who are Blind, Visually Impaired, or Otherwise Print Disabled.

NLS network library staff members, patrons, and others are invited to register for the event at https://www.copyright.gov/events/marrakesh-treaty-tenth-anniversary/. After registering, you will receive a confirmation email containing information about joining the event.

NLS is excited to join its colleagues at the US Copyright Office in celebrating the Marrakesh Treaty and its successful implementation here in the United States. NLS marked a milestone this summer with patrons’ 100,000th download of audio and braille materials acquired under the treaty. Since 2020, when the treaty was fully implemented in the US, NLS has added more than 5,700 works in more than 25 languages—including English—from treaty members. NLS has also uploaded more than 197,000 items to the Accessible Books Consortium Global Book Service, making them digitally available to other Marrakesh Treaty members.

We hope you will tune in—and please share the information and link with all your colleagues, friends, patrons, and supporters of Marrakesh!

If you are curious about what is available through the Marrakesh Treaty, visit NLS's International Language Quarterly page to see a list of some of the more recent popular titles available to download and instructions on searching for and downloading titles from BARD!

Links

Register for the 10th Anniversary: https://www.copyright.gov/events/marrakesh-treaty-tenth-anniversary/

Marrakesh Treaty: https://www.loc.gov/nls/about/organization/laws-regulations/marrakesh-treaty/

International Language Quarterly: https://www.loc.gov/nls/braille-audio-reading-materials/latest-books-in-braille-and-audio/international-language-quarterly/