Pioneering facilities for the visually challenged

The Braille section of the Anna Centenary Library to be opened soon will help people with visual impairment access books.

“This is one of the first public libraries in India to have these facilities introduced for the visually challenged, particularly with reference to books in Tamil,” said G. Arivoli, Director of Public Libraries.

“We have secured five Braille Displays, that will cover around 1,000 books in both Tamil and English initially,” he added. Using the equipment, the reader can go through the text, line by line, once the soft copy in the required format has been loaded to the instrument.

“The introduction of the Braille Display in Tamil is of great value. It will help save space, paper and energy,” said R. Jayachandran, associate professor in Tamil, Presidency College, and a person with visual impairment.

“The equipment in the Braille section cost a total of Rs. 15 lakh. We also have plans to procure the OpenBook software that converts printed pages into an electronic text format for the visually challenged.” said Mr. Arivoli.

Full report here Hindu

DAISY electronic books gifted to visually challenged

The visually challenged at NABPNM, Rehabilitation Centre for the Blind, Mount Abu, will no longer bear the burden of carrying heavy Braille books, thanks to GAIL India, Abu Road.

GAIL has made the road to knowledge for visually challenged less arduous. Under the tutelage of the Centre principal Dr V K Dengla, a team of readers headed by editing in charge Parvat Singh has brought out first DAISY book of Rajasthan, an electronic book for the visually challenged. Saanp To Saanp Hi Hota Hai', an anthology of neo-realistic poems in Hindi, was released on Wednesday by Mount Abu sub-divisional magistrate Tina Soni at the Centre.

Full report here Times of India

Open your eyes

The copyright law is to be amended but this won’t help the disabled. V. Kumara Swamy reports

Yogender Kumar likes to “listen” to books. For the visually challenged postgraduate student of Delhi University, this is a daily habit. “There were very few books in Braille — at least not the ones I wanted to read,” he says, talking about his school and college days. Then he got to know about audio books — books that could be heard on a tape, a CD or on the Internet. That’s how he explored the works of his favourite author, Munshi Premchand.

Kumar and his friends have found another way to listen to their favourite books as well as college notes. “We simply ask our non-blind friends to record them for us. In some cases electronically available books are converted into audio formats,” he says.

But an amendment (Copyright Amendment Bill, 2010) to the Copyright Act, 1957, may put an end to Kumar and his friends’ innovative ways of seeking knowledge.

Full report here Telegraph

Let the blind lead the blind

Literature and education for visually challenged persons in Assam is heading for a revolutionary change with the development of computerized transcription of Assamese language into Braille, using Duxbury systems - the world’s leading software for Braille that would automatically convert Assamese language written in Unicode - computer language into Braille.

The software has been developed at the initiative of the North-eastern Regional office of the National Federation of the Blind (NFB), in collaboration with New Delhi based Saksham Trust and Daisy Forum of India, the non-profit organisation working in the field of production of books and reading material in accessible formats for persons who can not read normal print.

“I am so excited! The software has already been developed successfully, tested, and I have received 20-pages of reading material for a test-reading, which shows 99 per cent accuracy in the software,” says Mohd. Imran Ali, Vice- President of NFB, who heads the North East regional office located at Guwahati. There is a minor problem with one or two letters, which is likely to be overcome soon, he says.

Full report here Eastern Panorama