Library
Corner
Here are
links, phone numbers, and addresses to
FREE reading and audio material,
online and otherwise, that is of interest to the
vision impaired, their families and their
caregiving community.
National
Library Service for the Blind & Physically
Handicapped Forms Partnership With National
Federation of the Blind
On March 4, 2002
the National Library Service for the Blind and
Physically Handicapped (NLS) announced it had
reached an agreement with the National Federation
of the Blind (NFB) to enable eligible individuals
to sign up for NFB-NEWSLINE through their regional
or subregional libraries. Beginning March 1. 2002,
NFB-NEWSLINE will be available nationwide,
providing unprecedented access to newspapers and
other timely information to those eligible to
receive services from NLS.
NFB-NEWSLINE is a
service that provides audio versions of daily
newspapers to eligible blind and disabled readers
The NFB created this unique service to allow those
who cannot read conventional print to have access
to newspapers and other time-sensitive information
at the same time as their sighted colleagues,
friends, and family members. NFB has invented a
centralized system that rapidly distributes
newspapers and other information in a format usable
by blind individuals through modern
telecommunications technology, high-speed
computers, and synthetic speech.
To provide eligible
individuals an easy way to apply for NFB-NEWSLINE,
NLS has developed an addendum sheet for the
NFB-NEWSLINE service (FR 100), soon to be available
from the multi-state centers, to be distributed
with the NLS application. Libraries should order
equal quantities of both when more NLS applications
are needed. Network libraries that have produced
their own applications may use the addendum sheet
with a local application and, when reprinting, may
include NFB-NEWSLINE as a service option on the
revised local application.
When a network
library receives an application with an addendum
sheet requesting NFB-NEWSLINE, it need only enter
information into its circulation system. This
information will be extracted periodically to be
sent to CMLS. As CMLS conducts a batch update each
week, patron names and addresses with the NWL8 CMLS
code will be provided to NFB, which will promptly
assign an identification number and security code
to the individual. NFB will send these codes
electronically to the agency that sponsors
NFB-NEWSLINE in the state. In some states this
agency may be a network library. In any case, the
sponsor will provide the access codes to readers.
The codes are needed to restrict use of the service
to persons who are eligible for library services
for the blind and physically
handicapped.
NFB-NEWSLINE is
available twenty-four hours a day, seven dags a
week, and is free to anyone who is eligible to
receive services from NLS. Blind and visually
impaired individuals can register for NFB-NEWSLINE
by completing the addendum sheet to the NLS
application. Current patrons should notify their
service library that they would like to have access
to NFB-NEWSLINE.
Daily papers
provided on NFB-NEWSLINE include USA Today, the
Chicago Tribune, the New York Times, the Washington
Post, the Los Angeles Times, and the Wall Street
Journal. Readers will be able to access these
papers and dozens more. NFB-NEWSLINE has a goal of
providing at least two papers from each state.
Also, NFB-NEWSLINE will offer menu selections for
other information such as agency announcements and
the library newsletters.
NFR-NEWSLINE is
versatile and user-friendly. Once registered, the
reader can call 1-888-882-1629 to access the
Service. This is a toll-free call from anywhere in
the United States and Puerto Rico. After a brief
opening announcement, the system will ask for the
pre-assigned identification number and security
code, which are entered on the touch-tone keypad.
Once admitted, the reader can then access the
newspaper menu or select other
information.
If the newspaper
option is selected, the reader will have access to
any paper available. This includes the current
day's edition, the previous day's edition, or the
most -recent Sunday edition.
Once in the menu of
a particular paper, the reader can choose any
section. The reader can switch from article to
article, section to section, or paper to paper at
any time and without delay. When reading a
particular section, pressing a single key on the
telephone keypad will quickly move the reader from
one article to the next, skip ahead in the article,
return to a previous article, change the speaking
speed, change the reading voice, or spell out or
search for words. The keystrokes are few and easy
to remember. NFB-NEWSLINE provides frequent
reminders to check the help page to learn more
about the service and any changes.
For more
information about NFB-NEWSLINE, visit the NFB web
site at www.nfb.org or call (410)
559-9314.
For further
information contact:
Stephen
Prine
Head, Network Services Section
E-Mail: spri@loc.gov
(Note: A
camera-ready copy of the addendum sheet was
attached to this notice and librarians were asked
to please photocopy it until the copies of FR 100
arrived at their MSCs.)
Low Vision Resource
Guide
Through the
research of the National Eye Institute (NEI), a
division of the National Institutes of Health in
the U.S. Department of Health and Human Services,
it was discovered that although many government and
voluntary agencies offered resources for people
with visual impairment, most of the general public
was unaware of these services, and in many cases
information about them was difficult to obtain. The
NEI also found that people with low vision who
weren't aware of available assistance were much
more likely to suffer profound lifestyle, physical,
economic, social and psychological consequences.
Part of the reason for this was that after learning
that their eye condition was untreatable, low
vision patients did not receive information about
where to go for help.
Meanwhile, the
Telesensory Corporation came to the same conclusion
as the NEI and decided to do something about it.
Working with professionals in the eyecare and low
vision fields, Telesensory has developed a Low
Vision Resource Guide in attempt to deliver crucial
information about resources at the time it is
needed most - right after a person is diagnosed
with low vision.
For your free copy,
call 1-800-804-8004 or click the graphic below to
order on-line.
.
National
Library Service Focuses on Digital Book
Technology
The
National Library Service for the Blind and
Physically Handicapped (NLS) continues its major
development program on digital technology. Several
efforts are underway:
• A
project to place 2,500 braille books in digitally
accessible format on the Internet for use by NLS
patrons;
•
Under the auspices of the National Information
Standards Organization (NISO), a prototype
electronic coding of the text of a book using draft
NISO Digital Talking Book standards;
•
Installation of the first digital audio duplicating
and archiving system at an NLS facility;
and
•
Development of a digital recording system at the
NLS Recording Studio.
In July
1998 NLS published a comprehensive paper, Digital
Talking Books: Planning for the Future, that
outlines the steps required for NLS to move its
national library service into digital format. The
paper is available in large print from the NLS
Reference Section, Washington, DC 20542 and may be
accessed online from the NLS website,
www.loc.gov/nls/.
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Sweden
Initiates New Talking Book Distribution
Currently,
the Swedish Model of Talking Book lending is that
of an integrated service in the public libraries.
The Public libraries have their own collections
sustained by interlibrary loans from TPB, the
Swedish National Library of Talking Books and
Braille. The distribution is usually done by post.
New distribution methods will undoubtedly be
developed when analogu talking books are replaced
by digital ones. Initially, however, in
co-operation with TPB, a 3-year project will be
launched later this year with Broad Band
Distribution with two of its regional libraries -
Västerås and South East. The books will
be sent by SUNET (the network of the Swedish
Universities) and when they arrive they will be
stored on CD-ROM's. The project will enable TPB to
build up a digital archive at SUNET. The talking
books will be distributed in DAISY 2 format and
MPEG 3 compression will be used.
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The
Alex Catalogue of Electronic Texts
Located
at http://www.infomotions.com/alex/,
the Alex catalogue is a collection of digital
documents of items from American literature,
English literature, and Western philosophy. Its
primary purpose is to demonstrate "arscience," the
process of understanding using methods from art and
science. The Catalogue's secondary purpose is to
provide value-added access to some of the world's
great literature in turn providing the means for
enhancing education.
The
Catalogue has a number of unique
features:
1) Not
only can you search for and display texts from the
collection, but you can also search the content of
located texts. For example, you can search for Mark
Twain's "The Adventures Of Huckleberry Finn" and
then search the content of The Adventures for the
words like fish and belly to get a description of
Huck Finn's father.
Moreover,
you can search the content of multiple documents
simultaneously. For example, you can first locate
all the documents in the collection authored by
Mark Twain. Next, you can search selected documents
for something like slav* (which includes slave,
slaves, slavery, etc.) to draw out themes across
texts.
2)
Provides on-the-fly creation of PDF (Portable
Document Format) files. Using this option you can
specify things like fonts and font sizes for your
output. For example, you can create a PDF version
of Washington Irving's Rip Van Winkle. This feature
allows you to create simply formatted but very
readable documents for printing; the documents in
the collection are not necessarily intended to be
read on-line.
3) Free
goodies are available for downloading. These
goodies include complete sets of the collected
documents and the tools necessary to search them
without the use of your Web browser. While you will
still need a direct Internet connection, the search
tools provide the means for more complex content
analysis and enhance access to texts in the
collection.
The Alex
Catalogue is the personal work of Eric Lease
Morgan, a Systems Librarian at the North Carolina
State University (NCSU) Libraries. He is also well
known for his professional writings and as an
aclaimed lecturer on a variety of subjects. While
considering himself a librarian first and a systems
librarian second, he has been the chief architect
of the NCSU Libraries FTP, WAIS, ListProcessor,
Gopher, and World Wide Web servers, as well as the
author of numerous support applications written in
HyperTalk, AppleScript, Perl, VisualBasic, and DCL.
His colleagues affectionately report that during
his spare time he has been seen folding defective
floppy disks into intricate origami flora and
fauna.
Questions
and comments about the Catalogue may be directed to
:
Eric
Lease Morgan
Infomotions, Inc.
219 Hawthorne Road
Raleigh, NC 27605-1634
Phone: 919-833-1366
E-Mail: eric_morgan@infomotions.com
Web: http://www.infomotions.com/alex/
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Project
Gutenberg, thousands of free e-texts from classical
literature and public domain.
Project
Gutenberg Etexts are made available in what has
become known as "Plain Vanilla ASCII." It is also
known as plain text, or DOS Text. It is the same
kind of characters you read on a normal printed
page-- italics, underlines, and bolds have been
capitalized.
The
reason for this is that 99% of the hardware and
software a person is likely to run into can read
and search these files. You can read these files on
virtually every computer, PC, Mac, Unix, mainframe,
even a Braille-and-Speak. You can download .txt or
.zip versions of the files. You can download them
with your browser or your FTP program.
Click
here to go to the Project Gutenberg web
site.
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Audio
books channel on Yahoo Broadcast.
Listen
to 24 different genres of books. These are actual
recordings and not a synthesized voice. These are
free to listen to, but you can't record them or
save them to disk. It may take sighted assistance
to navigate. Some books require Real Audio, and
some books require Windows Media Player. They
include links to those plug-ins if you don't
already have them. A special window will pop-up
that will bombard you with ads, but that is the
price of the "free" service. Click
here to go to the audio books channel at Yahoo
Broadcast
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