Michael Hingson (at the podium) and his guide dog Roselle participate in the 80th-anniversary celebration of the National Library Service for the Blind and Physically Handicapped (NLS). Hingson, an NLS patron since 1958, spoke about the “gift” of reading and the power of books. He recounts his escape with Roselle from the World Trade Center on Sept. 11, 2001, in his new book due out this summer. - Abby Brack
As with any octogenarian’s birthday party, the 80th-anniversary celebration for the Library of Congress’s National Library Service for the Blind and Physically Handicapped (NLS) on March 3 was a time for sharing memories.
Tom Galante, a vice president at the Bank of New York Mellon Corporation in Pittsburgh, recalled listening to an NLS talking-book recording of “The Godfather” in college and suddenly realizing his room was filled with other students drawn by the dynamic narration.
College student Nicole Coby, author of “Nickie’s Nook: Sharing the Journey,” said she would “never forget the day I first read my own book in talking-book format. … To have a well-known narrator I had been hearing for years read my book—it almost brought tears to my eyes.”
For Dr. James H. Billington, Librarian of Congress, the memories were of his grandmother, an NLS patron who lived to be almost 105. “She always said to me that talking books had added at least five, maybe 10 years to her life,” he said. “These books were literally her lifeline.”
The three shared the podium with, among others, Deanna Marcum, associate librarian for Library Services; Robert E. Fistick, deputy director of NLS; Marc Maurer, president of the National Federation of the Blind; and Tom Miller, executive director of the Blinded Veterans Association. About 100 people—including NLS employees and retirees, Library administrators, advocates for the blind, talking-book narrators and patrons—gathered in the Members of Congress Room in the Jefferson Building to pay tribute to NLS, which Dr. Billington called “a wonderful expression of the best in America.”
It was on March 3, 1931, that President Herbert Hoover signed the Pratt-Smoot Act, which established what is now known as the NLS braille and talking-book program.
“This gathering commemorates the completion of eight decades of extraordinary effort by a dedicated and visionary company: the men and women who make our service the finest in the world in providing books in braille and recorded-sound formats to individuals who are blind, visually impaired, or otherwise unable to use conventional print books,” Fistick said.
“But this event is not just a birthday,” he continued. “It is also a celebration of the recent developments that have ushered us into the new era of alternative reading materials: digital books and magazines of unprecedented artistic and technical quality, ease of use, and dependability.”
Fistick traced the history of the digital program back to 1990 and an international conference in Dublin, Ireland, that was organized by longtime NLS director Kurt Cylke, who retired Feb. 28. Those attending realized the days of cassettes—which NLS began using in 1970—were coming to an end and a better talking-book technology was needed.
The new digital talking-book system, which NLS began distributing in 2009, is the result of 20 years’ work since then. “The digital player is significantly smaller and lighter than the cassette machine and easier to handle and control,” Fistick said. “The audio quality is superb; tone and speed are easily adjustable; the machine remembers your place in a book. And the cartridge is virtually indestructible.”
Miller agreed. “It’s an incredible advancement,” he said. “Most anyone can operate it independently with ease”—especially older patrons who may not be comfortable with more sophisticated technology or who have limited dexterity.
Although NLS serves only United States residents and citizens living abroad, it has achieved an international reputation. Maurer said NLS is “the envy of people around the world … the best library for the blind you can find anywhere.” Indeed, Dr. Billington recalled that the first question he was asked when he was interviewed on a Russian radio broadcast some years ago was, “How can we get your service?”
Speakers also gave a nod to the Internet download services Web-Braille, which began in 1999, and BARD, the Braille and Audio Reading Download. One of the youngest NLS patrons, 9-year-old Brandon Pickrel (who said he is a fan of the Junie B. Jones series of children’s books), and his mother, Trudy Pickrel, president of Maryland Parents of Blind Children, got a quick lesson on how to use BARD during a demonstration of new NLS technology at the event.
NLS talking-book narrators were hailed as “rock stars.” “I order books frequently not by the title or the subject but by who the narrator is,” Miller said.
Narrators are “some of the most slept-with people in the United States,” Maurer joked, referring to many patrons’ habit of nodding off at night to a good book. “That goes a long way to explaining why I’m so tired all the time,” replied Martha Harmon Pardee, an award-winning narrator at Talking Book Publishers Inc. in Denver.
Perhaps the best summation of the role that NLS has played in so many lives during the past 80 years came from Michael Hingson, who recounts his escape from the World Trade Center on Sept. 11, 2001, in his upcoming book “Thunder Dog: The True Story of a Blind Man, His Guide Dog, and the Triumph of Trust at Ground Zero.”
Hingson got his first talking book from NLS—about dogs and cats, on 33-1/3-rpm records—in 1958. Through braille and talking books, he said, “I began to have the opportunity to imagine in ways that I never did before—the kind of imagination one can only get from reading. I was given a gift by NLS that no one else could ever provide.”
NLS Completes Digital Transition
Two years after starting to produce talking books on digital cartridges, the National Library Service for the Blind and Physically Handicapped (NLS) has completed its analog-to-digital transition.
Since 1931, NLS has administered a free library service that provides talking books and braille books to U.S. residents and American citizens abroad with low vision, blindness or a physical handicap that makes reading a regular printed page difficult.
NLS first produced talking books on long-playing records and later on open-reel magnetic tape and cassettes. Over the past 40 years, NLS produced 57,245 talking-book titles on cassette tapes and distributed more than 49 million copies of those books to its national network of libraries.
The last cassette book was shipped to cooperating libraries in January 2011—“American Food Writing: An Anthology with Classic Recipes.” The first title on a digital cartridge was distributed in mid-2009.
The NLS collection currently includes 2.5 million copies of more than 4,000 titles on digital cartridge. All new NLS audiobook titles now will be produced on digital cartridges.
These titles will also be available on the Internet through the Braille and Audio Reading Download (BARD) service, which currently offers more than 20,000 digital talking-book titles and 1,800 issues of digital talking magazines.
