Newsletter of the Section of Libraries for the Blind

Fall 1999/2

Editor:

Beatrice Christensen Sköld,

Co-editor:

Päivi Voutilainen

Distribution:

Beatrice Christensen Sköld Address as above

The Newsletter is available in braille and on diskette and on IFLANet, www.iflanet.org

Standing Committee Members

Secretary
Dick Tucker,

Matthijs Balfoort, The Netherlands
Margaret Bennet, UK
Henri Chauchat, France
Beatrice Christensen Sköld, Sweden (Information Co-ordinator)
Bente Dahl, Denmark
J.J.T.E Derks, The Netherlands
Hiroshi Kawamura, Japan
Brad Kormann, USA
Brabara Mates, USA
Marie-Pierre Tallec, France
Rainer Witte, Germany
Päivi Voutilainen, Finland
Yoon Loong Wong, Malaysia

Corresponding members:

Diane Bays, Canada
Barbara Fewtrell, Australia

Section News

New officers

Other new SC-members are: Margaret Bennet, Executive Director of the National Library for the Blind, Stockport, UK, Bente Dahl, head of the lending department of the Danish National library for the Blind, J.J.T.E Derks, Director of the Dutch organisation Centre for Spoken Books, Brad Kormann of NLS, Library of Congress, USA and Yoon Loong Wong of the National Council for the Blind, Malaysia. Henri Chauchat of the Association Valentin Haüy, who during the last two year has acted as Special Advisor of The SC is now a regular SC member. Rainer Witte of Blista, Germany was reelected for another fours years.

Outgoing members are: Karen Marie Ellefsen, director of the Norwegian Library of Talking Books and Braille, who has acted as secretary during the last four years; Odissa Blanco de los Santos, National Library of Cuba, Rodolfo Cattani, Ex-director of Biblioteca Italiana per Ciechi; Stephen King, Technical Director RNIB; Nic Snyman Director of the South African Library for the Blind and Michael Moodie of NLS, Library of Congress. Winnie Vitzansky and Catherine Desbuquois have both left the Standing Committee due to change of work.
Our dear Russian colleague Galina Diyanska of the Russian State Library for the Blind passed away in April this year. At the Bangkok meeting a silent minute was held in her memory. We thank all outgoing members for their dedicated work and wish all new SC members welcome!

The Bangkok conference

The Section held an Open Session under the theme Library Services to Visually impaired children. But library service to blind and other print handicapped person were also presented during other sessions. Of great interest was the workshop arranged by the Round Table of Mobile Libraries were an American project with what they called cypermobiles was presented. The cybermobile is a bookmobile that has been rebuilt and contains a number of computers with devices for the blind and other visually impaired. This way blind people, who have no computers of their own, can learn to use a PC and Internet.

Next year in Jerusalem

SLB Working groups

The SLB Working Groups are intended to provide opportunity for members in both developed and developing countries to achieve the following:

• Contribute experience and learn from others;
• Foster the development of Libraries for the Blind world-wide;
• Improve working relationships and better integration within IFLA;
• Create an opportunity for the staff of member libraries of the Section to exchange ideas and experiences, learn and develop or create solutions Libraries for the Blind could choose to apply.

Purpose of the Working Groups:

• Determine and address the issues that are pertinent;
• Propose and develop guidelines for broad application by Libraries for the Blind where deemed necessary and relevant;
• Organise and deliver workshops or training seminars for Preconferences, Seminars, or Presentations organised by the SLB Standing Committee;
• Promote awareness of the library and information service needs of blind or print handicapped people to other IFLA Divisions and Sections and wherever appropriate.

A Working group may be made up of staff from Libraries for the Blind around the world or other experts who have agreed and are committed to assisting the Working Group. Initially the working groups will communicate by email via a list serve for discussion, information and idea exchanges. List serve discussions will be concluded at the end of November 1999. More information and list serve addresses will be given by the co-ordinators of working group mentioned below.

The following Working Groups are proposed:

1. Cataloguing and Metadata
   Coordinators: Brad Kormann, e-mail: bkor@loc.gov
   and Margaret Bennett e-mail: margaret.bennett@nlbuk.org

2. Collection Development and Resource Sharing
   Margaret Bennett, e-mail: margaret.bennett@nlbuk.org
   and Dick Tucker, e-mail: dtucker@f-force.nl

3. Internet Use and Application
   Bente Dahl, BDA@dbb.dk

4. Digital Talking Book Development
   Hiroshi Kawamura, e-mail: hkawa@attglobal.net

5. Braille and Electronic Text Production
   Wong Yoon Loong, e-mail: ncftb@po.jaring.my

6. Library Systems and Information Technologies
   Paivi Voutilainen, e-mail: paivi.voutilainen@nvkirjasto.fi

7. Copyright and Rights Management
   Hiroshi Kawamura, e-mail: hkawa@attglobal.net
   and Henri Chauchat

8. Management and Strategic Planning
   Elsebeth Tank, e-mail: eta@dbb.dk

9. Marketing and Advocacy
   Rosemary Kavanagh, e-mail: Kavanar@lib.cnib.ca

Pre-conference in Penang, Malaysia

As the title suggests the underlying theme was the effect of the information age, and particularly digitisation, on the provision of library and literacy services approximately one hundred delegates from 27 countries participated in sessions covering the developments in the region, mobile libraries, latest trends in library services for the blind, digital talking books, computerised braille production, the digital library concept and tactile materials.

One of the main objectives of the section is to assist in the development of library services to the print disabled in countries that do not yet have such services. It therefore to be expected that the majority of delegates came from Malaysia and neighbouring countries of south East Asia. Starting with reports of what is happening in the Region it soon became apparent that although the countries of South East Asia might consider that their libraries for the blind are few and poor in comparison with those of the "Developed" world, it was interesting to learn how they are leap-frogging many of the development stages and moving directly into digital production of texts. Because of the high cost of producing alternative formats anything which will help lower the costs for libraries is desirable. The Region is keen to increase the amount of scanning text to braille and the creation of information networks to reduce double production of the same titles.

While the libraries and production centres are beginning to tool up with computers and scanners, it will be a long time before the end users will have computers. Efforts are being made to train many more people to produce braille texts. Networking all the small producers and the larger libraries was seen as priority.

Where libraries serve a disabled and dispersed population mobile library services are essential. The conference learned of such services in both Thailand and Sabah. Rather than create separate services for the visually impaired, delivery of alternative format materials is directed through existing library services.

In Europe and North America the link between public and academic libraries and services for the print disabled are increasing. The conference learned of a Swedish project in which print handicapped people were trained as library intermediaries in public libraries thereby lowering the threshold over which the handicapped have to step. Austria provided a model of services the visually impaired students through the University libraries.

With the rapid development of digital technologies there was continuing interest in the digital talking book. DAISY (Digital Audiobased Information System) Consortium members reported on the production of audio books and the move towards the hybrid file with the text and spoken versions on the same disc and coded together. There were also presentations on production and distribution. The world of libraries for the blind is both busy with the development and yet anxiously awaiting the move from analogue to digital that must come but has considerable consequences. The rest of the library world can also gain from the development of such a flexible technology as the use of spoken books increases and there is greater recognition of their value to dyslexics and people with other print handicaps.

Digital technology is also revolutionising braille production making it faster and cheaper through the use of scanners and computers. In this the developing countries are active in training library and production staff in the use of OCR software and braille conversion programmes. Because the production of braille entails the making of a digital file, the possibility of sharing files between libraries becomes a real possibility. The concept of the digital library was explored in the workshop. Not only is it desirable in order to cut down duplication of effort but it is now a practical reality using e-mail and the web. The virtual library with in a language area becomes a real possibility, providing the opening for less developed countries to make use of the resources of the developed countries. In the case of text the exchanges would be of braille files which should not give rise to any copyright problems.

Tactile images are not only an essential part of many braille books but are also essential for mobility (maps) and interaction with many of today's electronic interfaces. Though tactile drawings have been produced for many years there is still a great deal of research to be done into how visually impaired people can decode lines under their fingers into understandable information.

Running through all the sessions was the notion that the more the libraries for the blind become digital and the more that blind people can access digital information the greater the need to integrate services with the rest of the library and information world. For too long the blind (and their library services) have been confined to some nether region "over there" not here in the mainstream.

The final session of the workshop broke into discussions groups who derived the following pointers for future work

• The Section Libraries for the Blind must work with other IFLA Sections to improve their understanding of the "Libraries for All" concept.

• The Section should publish "Best Practice" standards not only to help all special libraries for the print handicapped to achieve the highest standards possible in their own context, but also to point out to the rest of the library world how effective co-operation may be achieved.

• The Section should also work on ways of developing a world-wide (virtual) catalogue of alternative format materials, which itself would be part of a networking between all libraries and production centres.

• The Section should provide training and networking opportunities to share good practice and knowledge about new technologies.

At the level of the libraries, if not at the level of the individual user, it is clear that the developed and the developing countries are faced with the very same problems. It is obvious that together we should be developing the same solutions. The Conference papers are available on IFLA-net, www.iflanet.org

Dick Tucker

News from Libraries Around the World:

Canada

E-Braille on the Internet

Canadian National Institute for the Blind, the American Printing House, and Duxbury Systems have agreed to collaborate on the development of an electronic braille project which will provide taking orders, tracking production and delivery of braille documents through a Web based connection which can be used by anyone to create a braille document or request the production of one. The announcement was made at the 131st anniversary meeting of APH in Louisville, USA and at the CNIB Library's Braille Conference, Toronto, Canada on October 22, 1999.

The development of the software has great potential for third world countries, or libraries providing reference service for example. But it will most likely benefit those with text book applications and services although others who want very simple documents to be transcribed into braille will benefit from the service.

Denmark

Russia

Languages opens the World

The recent changes and democratization in Russia has aroused new problems in the socialization of the blind and visually impaired. A majority of scientific field requires knowledge of one or several foreign languages. The number of contacts with persons from foreign countries is increasing immensely. Also the professional growth of blind and visually impaired persons depends to a great deal on the knowledge of foreign languages such as English. But the quality of education in Special Comprehensive Schools an in pre-school education leaves much to be desired. Hence the Center for Development of Children in co-operation with the Novosibirsk Regional Library for Blind and Visually Impaired has started a project called" Languages opens the World" for children. In order to be chosen to take part in the project the child undergoes at medico-pedagogical test The Library provides the children with audio-visual aids and text books. By learning more about the world the child widens his information area and thus develops his personality.

For more information about this project please contact:

Novosibirsk Regional Library for the Blind and Visually Impaired


Russia 630091
Novosibirsk
Krylova st. 15
Tel/Fax +8-3832-246592

E-mail:lib@online.nsk.su
Director: Yurii Yuirievich Lesnevsky