[bksvol-discuss] Letting the blind keep reading

"Shelley L. Rhodes" <juddysbuddy@xxxxxxxxxxxx> · Mon, 16 Aug 2004 15:54:00 -0400

BRAILLE AND TALKING BOOK LIBRARIES

Letting the blind keep reading
BY ZERAH LURIE
STAFF WRITER

August 13, 2004

There's more than one way to keep reading, and an underused regional
resource is dedicated to expanding options for the
visually impaired.

The Andrew Heiskell Braille and Talking Book Library, New York City's
library for the blind, serves 14,000 members, many
"avid readers who thought they could never read again," said Robert McBrien,
head of the library. "This library enables them
to continue doing something that they have loved since they were kids."

The library also serves those blind since birth and those with learning
disabilities.

"There are many, many more people who are either blind or visually impaired
who I am convinced would benefit from the service
if they were aware of it," McBrien said.

The library houses about 400,000 "talking books," and distributes between
1,000 and 2,000 audiocassettes daily through the
U.S. Postal Service.

Other services include descriptive videos, which are commercial videos with
narration, and adaptive technologies enabling the
visually impaired to surf the Internet.

"One of the main missions of the library is to make information available to
people, and one of the main sources for
information nowadays is through the computer," McBrien said.

While open to the public, to qualify for many of the library's special
services you need to be a New York City or Long Island
resident and have a visual or physical impairment that prevents you from
reading standard printed materials.

Bellport is home to the Long Island Talking Book Library, a subregional
branch of the Andrew Heiskell library serving Nassau
and Suffolk. With 100,000 talking books and just under 6,000 patrons, Jerry
Nichols, the director of the Suffolk Cooperative
Library System, says, "Many people in Long Island, New York City and America
are unaware of the differences talking books can
make in their life."

The service is free. Most patrons keep a profile of their preferred genres
or authors, said Nichols. They call, ask what's
new "and we send it to them."

Susan Mosakowski is director of Heiskell's audio book studio, which records
about 50 titles a year, focusing on books of
interest to New York. Sometimes, they record books that have escaped the
Library of Congress' extensive collections.

Mosakowski has overseen 350 audiobook productions. Creating an audiobook is
not as easy as simply reading it out loud, she
said. But New York has a wealth of talent, and the library tends to have
more volunteers than it needs. They use 50
volunteers with a command of 12 languages and many accents.

"The sense of absolute precision is very fulfilling," said Bryant Bradshaw,
a local actor.

The library's production becomes part of the Library of Congress collection,
available nationwide.

The library uses its own four-track cassette technology because of copyright
issues and loans out the machines needed to play
their tapes.

By 2008, the National Library Service hopes to use flashcards, the type of
digital storage devices used in digital cameras,
in an online system that will expand the amount of reading material that
people have available to them.

"And that obviously is a very good thing," McBrien said.

The Andrew Heiskell Braille and Talking Book Library, 40 W. 20th St.
(between Fifth and Sixth avenues) in Manhattan,
212-206-5400.

http://talkingbooks.nypl.org/

Books-by-mail applications at local libraries or online at Andrew Heiskell
Web site.

Long Island Talking Book Library toll free at 866-833-1122

http://www.litbl.org/

Copyright © 2004, Newsday, Inc.

http://www.newsday.com/news/health/ny-hsblind133927894aug13,0,4514109,print.story?coll=ny-health-headlines

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