Established by an act of Congress in 1931, the National Library Service for the Blind and Physically Handicapped (NLS) has grown to a program that supplies 23 million recorded discs and braille materials to more than 500,000 readers through a network of nearly 140 cooperating libraries around the country. During the year work continued toward replacing outmoded analog audiotapes and cassette players with state-of-the-art digital talking books (DTB).
Having completed the five-year development phase of the project, NLS began the conversion phase to implement the new digital talking books and playback machines by 2008. NLS issued several Requests for Proposals for equipment procurement and conversion of analog recorded catalog titles to DTB format in 2004.
Now in its fifth year, the Internet-based Web-Braille service continued to provide access to braille books, magazines and music scores online at www.loc.gov/nls/braille. In addition to providing access to braille material to users with a special braille keyboard and screen, the system allows a library that has lost a braille volume to order a new embossed, bound copy and put the title back in circulation. The Web-Braille site is password-protected, and all files are in an electronic form of contracted braille, requiring the use of special equipment to gain access. Web-Braille began with approximately 2,600 titles and only a few hundred registered users. At year's end the system offered 6,628 book titles, 582 music scores, 29 NLS-produced magazines and six sports schedules to 3,554 users.
