Update January-March 1996, Vol. 19, No. 1 ISSN 0160-9203 National Library Service for the Blind and Physically Handicapped The Library of Congress Fred Hicks receives McKennon award The West Alabama Chapter of the American Council of the Blind in Tuscaloosa honored Telephone Pioneer Fred H. Hicks with the 1995 Marguerite McKennon Award for twenty-six years of service in the talking-book repair program in the state of Alabama. The award is given annually by the Alabama Council of the Blind to recognize an individual who has made a significant contribution to the lives of blind people in Alabama. Gillie Presley, president of the local chapter, presented the award at a luncheon Saturday, December 2. "I am visually impaired, and I use the machines Fred has repaired," Ms. Presley said. "He is a wonderful person. All the repair service he does is free." Mr. Hicks organizes the annual Talking Book Repair Workshop for the state and encourages other Pioneers to join the repair program. Ms. Presley stressed that while Mr. Hicks started the repair service in Tuscaloosa, he works extensively throughout Alabama and other states. He is the current coordinator of Region 13 and is responsible for talking-book repairs in Alabama, Mississippi, Louisiana, Georgia, and Tennessee. Mr. Hicks has served several terms on NLS's Ad Hoc Audio Equipment Advisory Committee, expanding his service nationwide. Mr. Hicks retired from South Central Bell in 1981 after thirty-eight years of service. He is a long-time member of the Telephone Pioneers, serving several terms as president of the Tuscaloosa Chapter and receiving the Outstanding Pioneer Award several times. Last year the city of Tuscaloosa acknowledged his twenty-five years of service by declaring November 4 to be Fred H. Hicks Day. He was honored at a banquet where he received several awards. (photo caption: McKennon award winner Fred Hicks, left, makes a point about machine repair to Jim Seaton, Wisconsin Pioneer, at a 1990 NLS Audio Equipment Advisory Committee meeting.) (photo caption: Gillie Presley, right, president of the Tuscaloosa, Alabama, chapter of the American Council of the Blind, presents the 1995 Marguerite McKennon Award to Pioneer Fred Hicks.) ### Iowa joins work with festivity The Iowa Department for the Blind, Des Moines, combined its volunteer recognition luncheon with training sessions for braille transcribers and tape narrators at a June 16 event that attracted eighty guests. Two members of the National Braille Association (NBA) shared their expertise with the volunteers who assist the Library for the Blind and Physically Handicapped, a part of the department. Barbara Sheperdigian of Mount Pleasant, Michigan, who specializes in the braille textbook format, presented a variety of brailling challenges. She discussed the whys and wherefores of her choices in unique situations and responded to queries from the audience. She also described the techniques of proofreading and emphasized its value. Jane Alway of Toronto, Ontario, gave two sessions on the techniques of narration: how to handle non-narrative material such as maps, photographs, graphs, tables, schematics, and models, and how to incorporate tone indexing into recorded products. Cody Dolinsek, a patron and student at the department's Orientation Center, thanked the volunteers and offered the invocation at the luncheon. Lisa Davis, supervisor of the library's production unit, and Scott Van Gorp--Orientation Center student, patron, and a member of the Library Consumer Advisory Committee--presented pins to nineteen honorees, who were recognized for completion of their first assignments as braille transcribers or as narrators or who had completed twenty-five hours of service. "The pin was originally designed to symbolize braille transcription and tape narration skills," librarian Catherine Ford explained. "The spirit in which it was earned is the spirit in which it is given, and so it is given in recognition of all volunteer service to the Iowa Department for the Blind." The pin is a small bronze medallion with the two bands of an open-reel tape encircling an outline of the state of Iowa, and the six dots of a full braille cell. The six dots are divided, with three dots on each side along the edges. During the luncheon, Scott Van Gorp introduced his luncheon companion, Alberta Wing, who for many years has transcribed music into braille and thus supported his career as a musician. Mrs. Wing, who is in her mid-eighties, continues to transcribe braille music on her computer. (photo caption: Jane Alway, National Braille Association, presents narration techniques to Iowa volunteers.) (photo caption: Top: Barbara Sheperdigian, National Braille Association, stresses the importance of proofreading. Below: Music joins Alberta Wing and Scott Van Gorp: she transcribes it and he plays it.) ### Florida library gets "touch me" books A teddy bear, a gorilla dressed in beach attire, and three "touch me" books are the most recent gifts to the Bureau of Braille and Talking Book Library Services in Daytona Beach. They were made and donated by the Sand Dollar Chapter of the Embroiderers Guild of America for the enjoyment of the library's younger patrons. "Touch me" books are quilted and appliqued on muslin "pages" that have raised, padded figures that can be felt and identified. The books contain tactile pictures of a dinosaur, whale, sunflower, bear, house, Christmas stocking, and more. Under the guidance of Patricia Egee-Bennett, eight members of the group contributed to the project. They presented the stuffed animals and books to Linda Hill, technical and children's services librarian and Harriet Nace, then assistant technical and children's services librarian. Mrs. Nace is also a former member of the Embroiderers Guild in Orlando and the local Sand Dollar Chapter. (photo caption: Library staff examines "touch me" books and stuffed animals donated by Embroiderers Guild. From left: Linda Hill, technical and children's services librarian; Don Weber, library director; Desarae Stewart, reader services staffer; Patricia Egee-Bennett, Sand Dollar Chapter of the Embroiderers Guild of America; Lillian Durham, reader services staffer; Harriet Nace, assistant technical and children's services librarian. Photo by Dorothy Minor.) ### Braillist helps make children's book Shopping for a colorful and unusual book for a child? You may want to find a copy of the multimedia Golden Sound Story _Little Stevie Wonder in Places under the Sun_ by Sonja Wiley. It is the story of the talented Stevie Wonder, who was invited as a young boy to perform for important people in faraway places. In addition to having the bright and colorful illustrations to look at and coordinated sound-effects buttons to push, blind readers will also be able to read a braille version of the story. The braille was made possible through the work of braille transcriber Patricia Lidicker of Volunteer Services for the Visually Handicapped (VSVH) in Milwaukee. Ms. Lidicker had the challenge of relating Stevie Wonder's international adventures within the confines of the print-size pages. To accomplish this, she sometimes had to edit the story. "I was very troubled about revising the text in any way," says Ms. Lidicker, "but because of the sound buttons and the size of the pages, it was not feasible to do it any other way. I wanted braille users to experience this multimedia book." After being meticulously proofread, a simulated version of the braille text was sent to a printing company that used a method of overlaying layers of a thick, clear ink to form raised braille dots. The book is available from many book and toy stores or may be ordered from Western Publishing Company, Inc., Racine, WI 53404; telephone: 800-236-7123. ### Arizona celebrates 25th anniversary The Arizona Braille and Talking Book Library hosted its annual volunteer recognition banquet on March 19, 1995, which also marked the twenty-fifth anniversary of the opening of the library. Special guests were Frank Kurt Cylke, director of NLS; Arlene Bansal, director of the Arizona Department of Library, Archives, and Public Records; and Joe Sizemore, patron and staff member from the Special Needs Center of Phoenix Public Library. They joined 292 volunteers, guests, and staff for the luncheon banquet and awards presentation. In 1995, for the first time, the library honored ten-thousand-hour volunteers, recognizing Chuck Kruppe, a Telephone Pioneer with the machine-repair program since 1973, and the late James (Jim) Geer, director of the Recorded Recreational Reading for the Blind (RRRB) studio in Sun City, whose award was accepted by his wife, Helen. Another ten-thousand-hour awardee, ninety-five-year-old Jack Van de Water, also received a special Lifetime Achievement Award for thirty-two years of volunteer service through the Telephone Pioneers machine-repair program. Mr. Van de Water founded a repair group in Omaha, Nebraska, in 1963 and since retiring to Arizona in 1969 has cared for talking-book equipment for northern Arizona and the Phoenix area. Although Parkinson's disease prevents him from doing machine repairs, he still helps fellow residents of his retirement community with the use of their players. One five-thousand-hour volunteer, Gailerd Tisdall, was also honored. This longtime Telephone Pioneer is active with the Sun City repair group. He not only repairs machines himself, but has trained other Pioneers over the years. Eighteen volunteers with one thousand hours of service received recognition. These volunteers perform such tasks as narrating, monitoring, reviewing, editing, data recording, preparing mail, repairing machines and books, and delivering them to homes. They come from various areas of the state, and some have served in several capacities during their many years of volunteer work for the library. Their names will be added to the seventy-nine other thousand-hour names on the plaques that hang in the lobby of the library. The banquet speakers all commented on how volunteers have helped the library achieve its goals over the quarter century of its existence. Mr. Cylke focused on the work the Telephone Pioneers have done in Arizona. Volunteers and patrons were awed by his recounting of the numbers of hours given nationally by all volunteers to the NLS network. Many of his comments reflected on the continuity of service that staff and volunteers have contributed over the past twenty-five years to the Arizona library. Governor Fife Symington of Arizona sent a letter to each volunteer who had served one thousand, five thousand, or ten thousand hours and to Mr. Van de Water. He also sent a general letter to all the volunteers of the library, thanking them for proving that "each person can make a difference in the world." ### Oklahoma library: "a world of thanks" A World of Thanks was the theme for the 1995 annual volunteer recognition luncheon sponsored by the Oklahoma Library for the Blind and Physically Handicapped. Forty-five volunteers, several guests, and staff attended the June 16 event. The guest speaker was Captain Tim Adams of the Oklahoma City Fire Department, Public Education Division. He had been part of the rescue and recovery teams at the Alfred P. Murrah building, site of the April 19 bombing, where he saw firsthand the value of volunteers. "He said some very meaningful things in a short time," says Bonnie Jones, administrative assistant, Special Services. "The volunteers enjoyed and appreciated his talk." Each volunteer received a pocket calculator etched with a small globe and the words "A World of Thanks" and "Volunteer, Library for the Blind and Physically Handicapped." The Volunteer of the Year Award was presented to a group from the Oriole Rebekah Lodge. These volunteers come to the library every quarter to mail out the newsletter and also help with other large mailings. The group's name will be added to a list of volunteer-of-the-year recipients engraved on a plaque hanging in the library. "Without our volunteers we could not provide the services we do," said Ms. Jones. ### School volunteers help Florida library The Division of Blind Services, Bureau of Braille and Talking Book Library Services, in Daytona Beach enhanced its volunteer recording program last summer with the assistance of volunteers from the local school system. Two students, two teachers, and a school staff assistant participated in the program. "The students proved to be excellent monitors and reviewers," comments Doug Hall, head of customer/community relations. "They readily adapted to the operation of the reel-to-reel tape recorder, and their skill at operating the equipment was very much appreciated by their narrators." The students assisted in the production of _Bon Appetit,_ July 1995, and _Current Biography,_ May 1995. More than 640 Florida readers subscribe to these periodicals. The teachers teamed up to record the book _Totch: A Life in the Everglades_ by Loren G. "Totch" Brown. "To complete the recording of this 269-page nonfiction work, they were willing to keep a very flexible studio schedule," says Mr. Hall. "It was not unusual to have them come in at 8:00 a.m. one day and at 11:00 a.m. or later the next day. Because of their commitment, this book can now be enjoyed in recorded format not only by the thirty-eight thousand Floridians enrolled in the talking-book program but by readers registered with the cooperating libraries serving persons with print disabilities in the United States." The school staff assistant reviewed the artistic and technical quality of the tapes and made suggestions for improvement. Certificates of Excellence designed by Bureau employees Gloria Feinauer and Donna Schildt were presented to each participant. ### Braille student-instructor dialog The Braille Development Section receives numerous questions concerning a variety of problems in braille transcribing. This article will address some of them. The question-and-answer format is intended to give clarity. Student: The title of the book that I have selected for my thirty-five-page trial manuscript is very long. Because the title is so long, it will be necessary for me to condense it in order to transcribe the running head on one braille line. Should the condensed title be written in double capitals in braille? Instructor: Yes. When it is necessary to condense the title of a book in order to leave the required margins for the running head, the condensed title should be written in double capitals in braille. (See the second example given in section 18.2a of the _Instruction Manual for Braille Transcribing 1984._) Student: The book I am transcribing is not divided into chapters. Neither is it a collection of short stories or essays. What should I use as my heading on the contents page? Instructor: Good question. If you are transcribing a book that is not divided into chapters, and it is not a collection of short stories, essays, poems, etc., you should not include a heading on the contents page. Student: Does the rule presented in section 34d of the official code, _English Braille American Edition 1994,_ concerning the use of contractions in common terms for a particular subject, such as botany, medicine, etc., still apply? Instructor: Yes. Foreign words are frequently used in specialized material, such as books on law, medicine, and cooking, and for scientific classifications in such fields as botany and zoology. Strictly speaking, these terms are not foreign, as they have been incorporated into the scientific or specialized terminology. Thus, if the meanings of such terms are apparent in the text or listed in a glossary, they should be contracted. Student: I am preparing Exercise 16 from the _Instruction Manual for Braille Transcribing 1984._ Should the Bible reference in Excerpt 4 be treated as a credit line or attribution? Instructor: No, it should not be handled as either a credit line or attribution. The Bible reference in Exercise 16 should immediately follow the last word of the biblical quotation on the same braille line. Credit lines and attributions are discussed in detail in section 16.4 of the _Instruction Manual for Braille Transcribing 1984._ ### Volunteers master new skills During the months of October, November, and December 1995, certificates in braille transcribing were awarded to eight persons.* Of these, six were awarded in literary braille transcribing and two in mathematics braille transcribing. LITERARY BRAILLE TRANSCRIBERS Colorado Ellie Copek, Colorado Springs Connecticut Samuel A. Ulett, Cheshire Florida Carol B. Hilder, Ormond Beach Patricia Scarponi, Bonita Springs Nevada Perry Simpson, Indian Springs New York Frances Redmond, Brooklyn MATHEMATICS BRAILLE TRANSCRIBERS Ramon Cobos, Jackson, Michigan Christine Yovanovic, Jacksonville, Florida * Due to the delay in the approval of the Library of Congress fiscal year 1996 budget, money was not available for the evaluation of literary braille and mathematics braille certifications during the months of October and November. Therefore, the total number of certifications for this quarter was significantly below normal. ### Audio recording manual released The many studios across the country that produce audio-cassette reading materials, such as textbooks, instruction manuals, and recreational and work-related materials, for blind and physically handicapped persons can now benefit from a new publication, _The Art and Science of Audio Book Production._ The booklet describes the art of narration and provides technical advice on acoustics and tape mastering for recording studios. A detailed analysis of the elements of narration--voice, speech, language, and narration skill--is presented, along with position descriptions for audio book production staff. The sixteen-page, large-print pamphlet was written by NLS audio book production specialist Billy R. West, who has advised studios for more than thirty years. To request free copies of _The Art and Science of Audio Book Production,_ contact: Reference Section, National Library Service for the Blind and Physically Handicapped, Library of Congress, Washington, DC 20542, telephone 800-424-8567, fax: (202) 707-0712. ### Machine repair fax-on-demand Machine-repair volunteers can now download parts lists, schematic drawings, memos, and newsletters through NLS's new fax-on-demand program, according to Al Lakomyj, equipment and materials maintenance coordinator. The program can be accessed on (202) 707-0755. ### Meetings National Braille Association (NBA) Friday, April 26-Sunday, April 28, 1996, spring regional meetings and workshops, Airport Marriott Hotel, Pittsburgh, Pennsylvania. Friday, October 25-Sunday, October 27, 1996, fall meetings and workshops, Ramada Plaza, Minnetonka, Minnesota. Thursday, April 24-Saturday, April 26, 1997, twentieth National Conference, Wyndham Hotel, Austin, Texas. For information on these meetings, contact National Braille Association, Three Townline Circle, Rochester, NY 14623-2513; (716) 427-8260. California Transcribers and Educators of the Visually Handicapped (CTEVH) Thursday, March 28-Saturday, March 30, 1996, CTEVH XXXVII Annual Conference, Princess Hotel, San Diego, California. For information about this meeting, contact CTEVH Office, 741 North Vermont Avenue, Los Angeles, CA 90029; (213) 666-2211. ### "Train the Trainer" program NLS launched a nationwide volunteer repair training program on January 17 in Daytona Beach, Florida, in concert with the Telephone Pioneers of America. Called "Train the Trainer," the new program consists of twelve training sessions across the United States designed to help leaders of 288 repair facilities standardize and improve repair operations. Florida participants included, above left (left to right), Pioneers Robert Amend, New Smyrna Beach, and George Sheets, Fort Myers; above right, Leo Lukowski, Melbourne, and Kevin Watson, an NLS instructor for the course; and bottom left, J.C. Powell, Miami. See the April-June issue of _Update_ for more details. (photo caption: Photos by Dorothy Minor, Florida regional library.) ### _Update_ is published quarterly by: National Library Service for the Blind and Physically Handicapped Library of Congress Washington, DC 20542 Correspondence should be addressed to Publications and Media Section. Coordinating editor: Freddie Peaco Publication editor: Ruth Nieland Braille student-instructor dialog: John Wilkinson ### *** 2/12/96 (gft) *** Comments to: lcmarvel@loc.gov