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Home > About NLS > What's New?
What’s New? is an annual update for those already familiar with the National Library Service for the Blind and Physically Handicapped (NLS). It describes the most recent developments in the NLS program. Please contact your cooperating network library to request any item mentioned, unless otherwise indicated.
To commemorate the establishment of free library service for blind individuals, NLS and network libraries around the country have been holding press and community outreach events. A national press conference was held at the Library of Congress Thomas Jefferson Building on March 3, 2011, during which Librarian of Congress Dr. James H. Billington, National Federation of the Blind president Dr. Marc Maurer, Blinded Veterans Association executive director Tom Miller, patron/authors Michael Hingson and Nicole Coby, patron Tom Gallante, and talking-book narrator Martha Harmon Pardee discussed the importance of reading accessibility. NLS also collaborated with network libraries to hold events in Los Angeles, St. Louis, and Boston, covering three major geographic regions. More events are being scheduled.
Digital talking-book machines. If you haven’t received your new free digital talking-book player, please contact your local library. The player comes in standard and advanced models and offers a variety of features to enhance reading. In addition to high-quality sound, the machines offer flexible navigation that allows readers to move through a book in the traditional fast-forward and rewind methods. Readers may also choose to jump through the book using embedded levels and navigation points. Typical levels include chapter, poem, story, page, and recipe. Some books include navigation points at the level of individual ingredients.
The players also have a built-in audio guide, variable-speed controls that accelerate or slow down playback without changing the pitch, and a sleep button that allows users to instruct the player to turn itself off after a predetermined period of fifteen to sixty minutes, depending on the number of times the user presses the button.
Digital talking books. New books added to the collection are available as digital talking books. Most digital talking books will fit on one cartridge and are produced with navigation features best used by NLS players. For example, The Holy Bible—Containing the Old Testament and The Holy Bible—Containing the New Testament (both narrated by Alexander Scourby), which required fifteen audiocassettes between them, are now available as one volume on a digital cartridge: The Holy Bible (DB 68777). The NLS International Union Catalog record for each digital book includes a reference to the number of markup levels and navigation points.
Braille and Audio Reading Download (BARD). The NLS digital talking-book download service continues to grow. It now provides more than 21,800 audiobooks to 38,000 users. Most NLS-produced magazines are also accessible through this service. New books and many older titles continue to be added regularly. BARD is available to all registered library users in good standing who have access to a computer, a compatible digital talking-book player, a high-speed Internet connection, a USB cable, and digital cartridges.
Every regional library in the United States except for Puerto Rico is administering BARD for its area. Your regional library is the first place to contact for BARD support. For more information see the July 2011 publication Facts: Braille and Audio Reading Download (BARD).
Web-Braille. Web-Braille, the NLS web-based service that provides braille books, magazines, and musical scores in an electronic format, celebrated ten years of service in August 2009. The service now offers more than twelve thousand NLS-produced titles. Twelve regional libraries also regularly contribute titles. Plans are underway to merge Web-Braille into BARD so that all NLS digital books can be obtained from one location. More information will be provided as developments occur.
Each year, the NLS Music Section purchases braille, large-print, and recorded materials, internationally and domestically, to add to its collection. It also receives gifts from numerous individuals and institutions.
For braille materials, NLS added new piano transcriptions of Rachmaninoff’s op. 3, which contains the famous Prelude in C-sharp Minor; Beethoven’s Sonata, op. 53, the "Waldstein"; and the complete Hungarian Rhapsodies by Franz Liszt. On the lighter side, the Glee Songbook, of TV fame, has been acquired. Additions to the growing collection of digital braille scores on Web-Braille continue unabated.
New titles among recorded materials include an instructional audio course called Dictated Fake Book, for those interested in popular music. On the classical side, NLS acquired a set of thirty-one master classes from the Royal College of Music in London. Instruments include piano, voice, violin, trumpet, and cello. The large-print choral parts to Orff’s Carmina Burana and a set of well-known gospel songs from the collection Gospel’s Best have been added.
As always, NLS continues to add new paper and digital braille opera librettos. This year it was Berg’s Wozzeck, Adam’s Nixon in China, and Strauss’s Capriccio.
Reference factsheets, circulars, directories, and bibliographies provide information on topics of interest to persons with disabilities and to service providers. All reference publications appear on the NLS website at www.loc.gov/nls/reference. Braille editions of many of these publications are also on the website as contracted braille files.
The following NLS-produced reference factsheets were updated:
Digital Talking Books Plus 2010, formerly Cassette Books, will be available in large print and online this summer. The large-print version of Braille Books 2009–2010 and the braille version of Braille Books 2007–2008 will be released this fall. The braille and recorded versions of For Younger Readers 2006–2007 and the large-print version of For Younger Readers 2008–2009 are available; the braille, online, and recorded editions of For Younger Readers 2008–2009 are scheduled for release this fall.
NLS receives information and advice on its program through two standing committees: the Collection Development Advisory Group and the National Audio Equipment Advisory Committee. If you have ideas on the development of the NLS book collection or on playback equipment, contact your consumer organization or your local library for the name of your representatives on these committees.
In addition, your comments and suggestions concerning the NLS program are always welcome. Address them to the NLS consumer relations officer at the National Library Service for the Blind and Physically Handicapped, Library of Congress, or e-mail jdix@loc.gov, telephone (202) 707-0722, or fax (202) 707-0712. Requests for copies of reference materials may be addressed to the Reference Section by e-mail at nlsref@loc.gov, telephone (202) 707-5100, or fax (202) 707-0712. Requests sent through the U.S. Postal Service may be considerably delayed.
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Posted on 2011-08-16