A big step forward for braille has been authorized by Congress. On July 13, legislation that was introduced by Senator Schumer of New York passed in the senate. This bill, s. 3207 authorizes NLS to begin to distribute braille technology to its patrons. While NLS has been previously able to offer Digital Talking Book Players for audio content it produces and offers through its BARD service, they have not had the authority to utilize funding to distribute the digital braille equivalent. As a braille user, for example, who did not have the money or funding to purchase a braille device, the digital braille files NLS also offers would then not be usable by these patrons.
it's not exactly clear what the next step will be to getting braille devices in to the hands of NLS patrons, nor is it exactly clear what hardware will be used. It may be worth noting that this Government Accountability Office report from April 2016 made mention of the drop in cost to braille technology, and also the fact that distributing said devices could net a huge savings to NLS. One such lower cost option is the Orbit reader 20 makes specific mention of supporting NLS downloaded content internally, that was formally introduced at CSUN the previous month. The Orbit Reader 20 is expected to be available for under $500 later this year. It may also be worth noting that when the Digital Talking Book Players were rolled out to patrons in 2009, Veterans were the first to receive them.
Source: District DispatchCategory: News
Could be interesting, though if NLS doesn't pay for the Orbit Reader, for example, free distribution could kill it before it really gets going. Be careful with this.
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