    Newsletter of the Section of Libraries for the BlindSpring 1999The IFLA - SLB Newsletter is issued twice a year: spring and autumn.Editor:
Rosemary Kavanagh 1929 Bayview Avenue Toronto, Ontario Canada M4G 3E8 Tel. +1 (416)480-7521 Fax. +1 (416)480-7700 E-mail: kavanar@lib.cnib.ca Distribution: Beatrice Christensen Sköld, ChairpersonThe Swedish Library of Talking Books and Braille S-122 88 Enskede Sweden Tel.+46-8-399374 Fax.+46-8-6599467 E-mail: bea.christensen@tpb.se The Newsletter is available in braille and on diskette. Standing Committee MembersChairperson
Beatrice Christensen-Sköld S-122 88 Enskede Sweden Tel. +46-8-399374 Fax. +46-8-6599467 e-mail: bea.christensen@tpb.se Secretary
Karen Marie Ellefsen POB 5834 Majorstua 0308 Oslo Norway Tel. +47-22068801 Fax. +47-22607473 e-mail: Karen.M.Ellefsen@nlb.no
Matthijs Balfoort, Holland Corresponding members:Diane Bays, CanadaBarbara Fewtrell, Australia African Seminar launched in GrahamstownA seminar to bring new developments and trends in services to blind and visually handicapped Africans began with a welcome from the Mayor Ms Nonthuthu Faku on Tuesday, February 16, 1999 at the Settler's Monument in Grahamstown. Ms Nonthuthu Faku spoke of the importance of the work of providing library services for the blind and bringing dignity and opportunity to those who are handicapped. The Seminar, developed for libraries in English speaking Africa, was an IFLA project coordinated and developed by the South African Library for the Blind in Grahamstown. Dr. William Rowland, Executive Director of the Southafrican National Council for the Blind (and Chair of the South African Library for the Blind) opened the seminar on Wednesday, February 17, 1999 with an overview of conditions in South Africa. Ms Beatrice Christensen Sköld, Chair IFLA Section of Libraries for the Blind emphasized the importance of national and international cooperation in building good library services for blind people everywhere. The seminar brought together professionals from Africa and abroad to share their experiences and vision in providing library services to blind Africans. The impact of new technologies and directions were presented by speakers from the United Kingdom, Canada, Denmark, Sweden, and Africa. Speakers from Zambia, Zimbabwe, South Africa, Uganda, Botswana, Swaziland, Uganda, Kenya and South Africa described the challenges faced by libraries for the Blind in Africa. In 1980 UNESCO sponsored an IFLA African Seminar according to Hiroshi Kawamura, former Chair of the IFLA Section of Libraries for the Blind. It took nineteen years to come back to Africa Mr. Kawamura said. Acclaimed by all to have been successful, the staff of the South African Library for the Blind were acknowledged for the excellent arrangements for the three day seminar which began Wednesday, February 17th 1999 and ended on Friday February 19th with country reports from Africa and a tour of the facilities for the South African Library for the Blind in Grahamstown. In the following we are giving a short account of the African presentations. The papers are available in electronic format or print copies from the South African Library for the Blind (e-mail blindlib@iafrica.com). Musicians and Librarians in Joint Project in ZambiaNgenko Kabyema, Director of Zambia's National Library and Cultural Centre for the Blind announced a project with musicians in Zambia to build facility for recording both music for Zambian musicians and books and material for print-impaired students and recreational readers. Beit Trust in the United Kingdom contributed 30,000 pounds based on Mr. Kabyema's proposal for this cooperative venture which accommodates both musicians and blind readers. Recording music is very expensive and the project will provide employment for some blind musicians and instructions for other blind people. The studio is expected to be in place by the end of April. Cooperation and donation are the key underpinnings of the progress towards library service for the blind in Zambia. Consequently, despite under funding and lack of resources an estimated 2,500 Zambians receive braille and audio books through a centralized system. Braille literacy is a huge problem where there are no resources to address it and where there is demand to get information in the appropriate language which can be read by Blind people for accomplishing practical things like growing rice. Library service to blind people in Africa is poorly supported by their governments according to Dr. William Rowland, Executive Director of the South African National Council for the Blind, who said that it is the mission of the World Blind Union to strengthen Associations for the Blind to lobby for their needs. But it was acknowledged that African governments with little resources faced huge challenges in spending priorities for the advancement of their citizens. For example the Zambian Government provided 4,266 US dollars in 1998 while the Finnish Federation of the Visually Impaired contributed 50,000 USD. They constantly worry that the funding might end and place the future of the service in jeopardy. Daring to Dream: Library Service in ZimbabweIf you mix caterpillars, a popular dish in Africa, technology, terrible politics, human rights and injustices you have an idea of what computerized braille is like in Zimbabwe according to Sister Catherine Jackson. But the dream is for a seven story building which can accommodate the services provided and generate funding from rental of office space. Sister Catherine estimates that about 10M USD is required and has asked for an opportunity to bring this need to the Oprah Winfrey show. Nonetheless, the Dorothy Duncan Braille Library and Transcription Service has the capacity to produce Braille for all of Africa. Their Library users range from a blind child browsing the Worldwide Web to others using the slate and stylus. About 100,000 people of a population of 12,000,000 are estimated to be blind but only 900 of approximately 20,000 blind children are in school. A generation of school aged blind children are missing an opportunity to be educated. The last census collected no information on blind people in Zimbabwe. These achievements were not possible without support from agencies such as IBM. The integration of a blind man into the sighted world with computer training which enabled him to keep his job has been a huge advantage in promoting the Library. Once students leave both secondary and tertiary institutions they have no technological or other resources. Students in Tertiary Education: A Partnership with Other StudentsGrace Motshologane, Director of Disabled Students Unit, University of the North, Sovenga, South Africa, uses common interest to get additional support for students at the University. Social Science students were encouraged to practice their skills by volunteering support to the Unit and assisting disabled students. Medical students were encouraged to work with these students to discover more about blindness. Disabled students are a minority in South Africa and many are not accommodated at other colleges as they are not equipped consequently the University of the North often has to accept them. The Disabled Students Unit of the University of the North presently supports 46 visually impaired students through a variety of organizations. However service providers are hard-pressed to provide materials in appropriate formats and the adaptive technologies to support the student's academic program. There are limitations on courses such as mathematics which students cannot do. Some courses have to be modified to allow for extra time or for students to use computers. Library service to students with disabilities is unsatisfactory. Ms Mothshologane feels that the response of the library profession to the problems of the visually impaired necessitates a qualitative change in professional attitudes and actions. However, the dream is to create a Centre of Excellence and develop a model of service for disabled students in Africa. Uganda's Universal Primary Education Programme increases Demand for BrailleWith help from the Danish Association of the Blind, a two week workshop was conducted in February 1997 to set up the first automated braille production facility in Uganda. Mr. Edward Kasolo Kimuli felt that the increased demand for braille is a result of the Universal Primary Education Programme implemented in Uganda in January 1997. Under this program the government provides tuition fees for 4 children per family with priority for a child with disability and the girl child. It resulted in increased enrollment of children in school and a concurrent increase in children with special education needs. The Uganda National Institute of Special Education (UNISE) has begun to experience the benefits of the braille production unit as over 171,000 pages of braille were produced between July 1997 and November 1998. The braille collection is gradually growing in the UNISE Library including textbooks, foreign magazines, brochures and selected articles. Braille literacy and competence are emphasized and workshops to build competence among braille teachers have been provided. The Braille production Unit collaborates with a variety of other agencies for training purposes. These include agencies in Kenya and Norway to support transcription of textbooks particularly mathematics textbooks. However, the survival of the Braille Production Unit is dependent on funding which has been provided by both UNISE and the Tambartun National Resource Centre for the Visually Impaired in Norway. If funding is found to make the unit sustainable the anticipation is that the Unit will become a National Braille Press operating on a larger scale to meet the increasing demand for braille. Independence is the vision for blind library users in BotswanaThe Setswana saying "Se monate se ingwaelwa" is a metaphor for the empowerment and satisfaction blind people gain when they solve their own problems and can read independently without relying on friends and relatives to read to them. Faith D.O. Macheng, Coordinator for Library Services for the Disabled at the Botswana National Library Service, described efforts to establish the Unit-Library Services for the Disabled. It marked a beginning towards filling the information gap for disabled people in Botswana who had long been ignored. The proposal to develop library service began with study tours of the South African Library for the Blind, the Norwegian Library for the Blind, and the Library of Congress. Funding provided by Sweden (SIDA) enabled the initial steps to be taken to develop the proposals. Service would include large print, braille and talking books, and an information and referral service. Currently there is only one staff member attached to the Unit. With computerization of some areas of the Botswana National Library Service it is anticipated that this Department will be computerized by June 1999. Ms Macheng anticipates that the service will acquire relevant information using today's technology. She looks forward eagerly to the day when she circulates the first book. Guidelines for Library Service to Braille Users The Standing Committee of the Section of Libraries for the Blind will publish IFLA's braille guidelines on IFLANET (www.ifla.org). All blindness organizations, public, academic and libraries for the blind with Web presence are urged to establish a link to these Guidelines when these become available on the Internet. The Guidelines will also be published in ink-print and braille in June this year. News from Libraries Around the WorldMiracle project startsOn the first of February 1999 the MIRACLE project (Music Information Resources Assisted Computer Library Exchange) was launched under the European Commission's Telematics Application Programme (Libraries Division). Co-ordinated by the SVB in Amsterdam this two-year project aims to create a central catalogue and database of music in alternative formats. The action is based on the co-operation of four major libraries, SVB, RNIB, ONCE and SBS (Switzerland), which have worked together for five years to create the standards for the central catalogue. These four libraries are joined in the project consortium by the Danish Library for the Blind and Stamperia Braille of Florence, Italy. The system development is in the hands of Shylock Progetti of Venice and will be based on the library access program developed in the CANTATE project. Project management will be supplied by the FORCE Foundation in the Netherlands. MIRACLE is not only an international union catalogue of music it will also deliver the digital files of the pieces. These will primarily be braille but it is hoped to include spoken music and large letter music. The whole system will be available via the Internet. Because music in alternative formats is so expensive to produce it makes sense for libraries around the world to share their resources thereby reducing duplication. Where libraries are required to sell music files the system will track and permit secure electronic payment and manage the redistribution of costs. Although it is possible to make the system open to individuals the primary participants will be the special libraries for the blind and other braille production units. Purchasing an existing braille file will be cheaper than creating the file anew. There will be differences in the music layout produced in different countries. MIRACLE is not setting out to automate conversion from one format to another but it will be investigating the acceptability of these different files by the users. MIRACLE expects to open the system to as many libraries as wish to take part during the two years of the project. The system must be ready for trials and evaluation in February/March 2000. For more information see the SVB web site at http://www.svb.nl/project/MIRACLE/ or contact the co-ordinator Vera Wessels, Head of the Music Department, SVB, Molenpad 2, 1016 GM Amsterdam, The Netherlands vwessels@svb.nl TESTLAB successfully completed and looks to TESTLAB 2At the end of September 1998 the two year project TESTLAB (Testing Electronic Systems using Telematics for Library Access for the Blind) received a positive evaluation from the European Commission. Spread across the European Union the project had established and tested a series of approaches to making public and academic libraries accessible by visually impaired readers. Because such access is largely language dependent, trials were carried out in different countries as separate actions backed up by extensive sharing of results and the development of a prototype interface to make it simpler for visually impaired readers to access OPAC's. In Ireland three public, two academic and one special library installed workstations providing a selection of access methods; speech synthesis, transient braille, large letter, choice of colours etc. The National Council for the Blind of Ireland (NCBI) also created a new accessible catalogue of their holdings. The UK part of the project, run by the RNIB and Share the Vision, enabled the National Union Catalogue of Alternative Format materials to be integrated into the UNITY project thus enabling readers to first see if a title existed and then to discover whether it was available in a suitable format. The participating library authorities also agreed to inter-library loan of alternate format materials. The National Library for the Blind joined with the RNIB in this action during the project and the system operated by the London and Birmingham regions also provided access to NUCAF. TESTLAB functioned here as a catalyst for many parties who previously had not always worked successfully together. In Italy the Municipality of Genoa equipped the central and a suburban library. The special library Istituto David Chiessone also has a workstation and provided the expertise. Here the problem was the lack of an experienced user group, so the approach was centered on the social aspects and mobility. The project was not only successful with the users but attracted the attendance of the President of Italy and a leading pop star who is visually impaired. The resulting press attention and considerable efforts of the local project team have resulted in at least seven major cities expressing their intention of setting up similar systems. The Universities of Linz and Graz set out to develop support systems for their students and to involve other universities. Before the end of the project all the Austrian Universities had installed workstations and created a network of all their libraries. They also developed catalogue access systems, linked these to information from the other German speaking areas of Europe and were influential in the decisions that Austria took to change the national cataloguing. The partners also created a German language Gutenberg database. The pay off can already be seen in the increased numbers of visually impaired students choosing to enter University. Thessaloniki in northern Greece was the site of a study of an area with no infrastructure for provision for visually impaired readers. By thorough research with civic authorities, local and national politicians and the existing providers of alternative materials, the local partners Polyplano Euroconsultants developed a plan for new provision of materials involving the municipal library and the University of Macedonia. The Dutch libraries SVB and CGL co-ordinated the project and developed the interfaces respectively. Now work is progressing on the development of TESTLAB 2 involving European Union and East European countries. For information on the project and reports contact http://www.svb.nl/project/testlab/testlab.htm Today Canada and the United Kingdom, tomorrow the worldA ground breaking partnership launched today between the British and Canadian National Libraries for the Blind will mean a much improved library service for visually impaired readers on both sides of the Atlantic and paves the way for similar future links across the world. Margaret Bennett, Chief Executive of the National Library for the Blind (NLB) and Rosemary Kavanagh, Executive Director of the Canadian Library for the Blind, met at the Canadian High Commissioner London as guests of Deputy High Commissioner Jacques Bilodeau to cement the partnership. The arrangements for cooperative services will allow readers from both countries to select books from either collection. Both Libraries plan to use a common library management system, based on Geac to facilitate access to their collections for clients and library staff in the United Kingdom and Canada and to jointly develop collections and holdings for the benefit of their clients. A deaf-blind Canadian reader Gordon Janz writing to the NLB in the UK says AIt is great news to hear of your resource-sharing agreement with the CNIB Library. I look forward to participating fully. Rosemary Kavanagh told Deputy High Commissioner Jacques Bilodeau that this may be the first such formal agreement between international libraries to directly align services and jointly develop collections. Mr. Bilodeau commended both organizations for this initiative and endeavour and wished them success. Force is not a Travel AgencyWhen the FORCE foundation was launched at the IFLA conference in Amsterdam in August 1998 its first action was to enable delegates from many developing countries to attend the conference and introduce them to specialist from other countries. As a result the Foundation received many requests for financial support from people wishing to attend other conferences and meetings. In order to assist the development of library services for print handicapped readers in developing countries FORCE has a clear plan of work. In addition to establishing a small number of resource centres there will be a series of workshops and seminars. Some of these may be established by the FORCE Foundation but in many more cases FORCE will join with existing organisations to increase the potential of its resources. It is in these instances, where FORCE will have an input into the content of the workshops, that FORCE will be able to decide which delegates to support. All of the efforts of the Foundation are directed towards helping institutions develop sustainable resources with trained staff and the full support the authorities that govern them. FORCE is always open to requests for support but has to reserve the right to chose those that meet the aims of the Foundation. In the best of cases these will also be the aims of the claimants. Sweden initiates Talking book distribution by Broad BandToday the Swedish Model of Talking Book lending is that of an integrated service in the public libraries. The Public libraries have their own collections sustained by interlibrary loans from TPB, the Swedish National Library of Talking Books and Braille. The distribution is usually done by post. But how will the distribution be effected when analogue talking books are replaced by digital ones? There may be many new way i.e. Broad Band. In order to try this technology, later this year , two regional libraries- Västerås and South East - in cooperation with TPB, are launching a 3 year project with Broad Band Distribution. The books will be sent by SUNET (the network of the Swedish Universities) and when they arrive they will be stored on CD-ROM's. The project will enable TPB to build up a digital archive at SUNET. The talking books will be distributed in DAISY 2 format and MPEG 3 compression will be used. IFLA/SLB Pre-conference on Bridging the Gap in the Provision of Library Services and Literacy Support for the Blind in Realising the Information Age, Penang, 18-20 August 1999Venue: Penang, Bayview Beach Resort, Batu Ferringhi Beach, 111 00 Penang, Malaysia. Tel. +60 4-8812123, Fax No. +60 4-8812955 Fees: USD 400 Including 5 star accommodation for 3 nights Draft programmeAugust 18Arrival and optional study tour to a local school for the blind in Penang August 19
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