NLS and Perkins team up for eReader pilot
“Braille needs to migrate. It needs to follow print into the electronic
era where it can be more flexible, more ubiquitous, more accessible,
more manageable.” These are the words of NLS Director Karen Keninger at
the April 2016 NLS national conference in San Francisco.
And now we’re seeing that migration come about. Earlier this month, Kim
Charlson, Executive Director of the Perkins Library, and Keninger,
representing NLS, stood side by side to announce a practical step toward
the future of braille distribution. They were launching a pilot to test
the effectiveness of distributing digital braille files for use on
braille eReaders—those refreshable braille displays that are now
becoming more widespread and portable. In the pilot, the Perkins Library
is providing braille eReaders to registered borrowers in order to test
the ease of use and effectiveness of electronic braille files on the
devices.
Non-braille users might be surprised to learn what a difference a change
to electronic distribution can make for braille users. Digital files
have been used for years to produce hard-copy paper braille books,
which, when printed, require between two to eight physical volumes per
title. That bulkiness—in production, handling, shipping, storage—is
exactly what digital files and braille eReaders can help alleviate. No
more struggling to get giant volumes of summer reading into a weekend bag!
There’s no question that the fundamental process of distributing digital
braille files works, and that eReaders can serve them up easily for
users of braille. What we still need to understand is how best to turn
that process into practice. What’s the right format for distributing the
files? Can it be easily scaled to serve as many patrons with as many
braille files as possible? Can we ensure the process lightens the burden
on cooperating network libraries? And, above all, is the process easy
for patrons to use?
It’s exactly the right moment for this pilot. Braille eReaders have been
around for decades, but their cost has put them out of reach of many.
Now eReaders are becoming more affordable and easier to operate. The
pilot is timed to help NLS, and partner organizations like the Perkins
Library, prepare for wider use among their patrons.
NLS will keep you posted as the pilot unfolds. It’s not just NLS, it’s
braille itself that’s on the move.
September 28, 2017
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David Goldfield, Assistive Technology Specialist WWW.David-Goldfield.Com
