This article was originally published in the Lincoln Journal Star.
Nebraska Talking Book and Braille Service uses newly developed technology to supply audio books to individuals with print disabilities. As books are requested, they are duplicated and mailed to the borrower’s home. Duplication-on-demand has eliminated waiting lists for popular books. Borrowers are also able to download reading materials and listen to them on their phone.
Talking Book and Braille Service is available to Nebraskans with print disabilities. These include visual impairments, dyslexia, and disabilities that make holding a book difficult. Talking Books is part of the Nebraska Library Commission and works in collaboration with the National Library Service.
The National Library Service for the Blind and Print Disabled works with Talking Book libraries across the nation to provide audio books, magazines, and special book players. The National Library Service has also paid for mailing the materials back and forth to homes, so that there is no cost at all to borrowers to use the service.
To supplement the bestsellers and national books and magazines, the Talking Books audio studio records 21 magazines of specific interest to Nebraskans. Volunteers narrate the text as a second person follows along and handles the recording equipment. The team’s goal is to make a recording that is word perfect. Experienced volunteers might also narrate books about Nebraska or by Nebraska authors. To audition to be a narrator, or if you or someone you know would like to sign up to use the service, please contact the Nebraska Library Commission Talking Book and Braille Service at 402-471-4038 or 800-742-7691.
What are the qualifications for this service? Does the patron need to contact you or do they go through the library.
They can contact the Library Commission, as the article mentions: “To audition to be a narrator, or if you or someone you know would like to sign up to use the service, please contact the Nebraska Library Commission Talking Book and Braille Service at 402-471-4038 or 800-742-7691.” They can also print out a application here.
The application states “Eligibility of blind and other disabled persons for loan of library materials: 1. Those people whose
visual acuity, as determined by competent authority, is 20/200 or less in the better eye with
correcting lenses, or whose widest diameter of visual field subtends an angular distance no
greater than 20 degrees. 2. Those with physical disabilities are eligible as follows: (a) Persons
whose visual impairment, with correction and regardless of optical measurement, is certified by
competent authority as preventing the reading of regular printed material. (b) Persons certified
by competent authority as unable to read or unable to use regular printed material because of
physical limitations. (c) Persons certified by competent authority as having a reading disability
resulting from organic dysfunction and of sufficient severity to prevent reading regular printed
material in a conventional manner.”