Digital Braille library in Mysore soon

A digital Braille library will come up in the city shortly. Talks have been held in this regard with the National Association for the Blind, where the required equipment will be provided by the state and infrastructure by an NGO, said District Minister S A Ramdas.

Digital books will be printed for the visually-impaired and libraries set up on the lines of digital libraries of universities and colleges. He was speaking after distributing aids to 1,128 differently- abled persons of Mysore district at the Karanth Ranga Mandira at Karnataka Exhibition Grounds on Sunday.

 The event was organised by the Pandit Deen Dayal Institute for the Physically Handicapped of New Delhi, in collaboration with the district administration, District Disability Rehabilitation Centre and the Indian Red Cross Society, Mysore.

 Stating that houses will be distributed to 297 differently- abled persons by next year under the housing policy, he added that housing cards will be distributed on September 25. The differently-abled who are residing in rented houses can avail of the benefits.

SOURCE: INDIAN EXPRESS

A children’s library for the blind

CHENNAI: Their excitement was palpable as they were handed a copy of 'The Hungry Caterpillar.' A Shaktivel of Class 6 eagerly ran his nimble fingers over the protruding Braille script on the leaves of the pages, mouthing the words, while his friend G Pradeep kept feeling the rough texture of a cloth caterpillar stitched across the page. S Shyam Kumar kept inserting his fingers wherever he could to get a feel of the pages.

The three St Louis School for Blind and Deaf in Adyar students, along with a few others from their school and from the Little Flower Convent Higher Secondary School for the Blind, were among 10 students gathered at Hippocampus Children's Centre in Adyar on Friday for the inauguration of a special section for the visually challenged. Possibly the first of its kind, the section provides easy accessibility for visually challenged children to story books in Braille, audio books and tactile toys.

"We do have story books at school, but I haven't really read any that have pictures that can be felt," said Shaktivel as he ran his fingers over an embellishment of a tortoise. "My favourites, however, are always those involving a mouse or a fox. Mice are so mischievous and foxes are cunning. Super-aa Irukkom (it will be super)."

A joint initiative of the Karadi Cultural Alliance Trust (KCAT) and Sir Ratan Tata Trust fund, the Creative Resource Centre (CRC) contains more than 100 Braille titles. The books are by popular children's book houses such as Karadi Tales, Scholastic, Tulika, Mango Books, Ekalavya Publishers and Tara. "We were looking for a space that would be easily accessible to both differently abled as well as regular children," said Shoba Vishwanath, a founder-trustee of KCAT. 

MORE NEWS AT: http://articles.timesofindia.indiatimes.com/2012-08-04/news/33034643_1_audio-books-braille-script-story-books

Special reading section for blind children opened at State Library, Chandigarh

Chandigarh In a move to offer a learning platform to the visually impaired children in the city, the UT Administration has set up a special reading section in the State Library, Sector 34.
The reading corner has been set up for these children inside the reading hall of the library. The technical set-up at the reading section works in a manner that whenever a page is flipped on one side of the machine, the softare reads out the contents of the book for the student.
Braille has also been installed for the students who wish to type anything on the computer. “There is a software called JAWS which transforms a computer into a speaking machine. Whatever is being typed by the student on the braille keyboard, the software reads it out to him,” said K R Sood, principal of the Blind School, Sector 26.

The system has already been in use in the Blind School for the last couple of years. “Technology has taken away the limitations of the specially abled children. The blind students are much more self-sustained now,” said Sood.

More News at:http://www.expressindia.com/latest-news/special-reading-section-for-blind-children-opened-at-state-library/979072/

The mobile Braille library (Delhi)

More than an hour after they started from the headquarters of Delhi Public Library (DPL) opposite the Old Delhi railway station, Devinder Kumar ( and team make their stop at the All India Confederation of the Blind (AICB) at Rohini Sector 5, more than 30 kilometres from the city. Once their van has been positioned near the gate, Kumar goes in to tell students that the DPL’s mobile Braille Library is open for business.

This is the first trip of the mobile Braille Library to the AICB after the service reopened after summer vacations. “We make two to three stops a day, mostly at schools for one hour at each. We carry mostly fiction, as textbooks are available at respective school libraries,” Kumar says.

Arranged in shelves inside the yellow van, where Kumar and an attendant issue books, are about 1,500 books, mostly Hindi fiction and a few English volumes of Shakespeare and Dickens.

“Almost all of our clients issue Hindi fiction, so we stock mostly that,” says Romila Ahluwalia, the Braille library in-charge at DPL who had accompanied the Braille library van on Friday.

Sheila Yadav, attending a stenography course at the AICB, says, “I prefer fiction. Mostly Prem Chand and Shrilal Shukla. Mobile library is more convenient than going to Lodhi Road. The Metro runs only till Pragati Maidan and the rest of the journey is by bus.”

Prakash Chandra, another student, prefers general knowledge books. “The collection on the mobile library is good, but I wish they had more magazines,” he says.

Every Thursday the van heads to the Braille library at Lodhi Road to change its collection. The library is now working to add e-books, which can be issued in CDs or on pen drives, says the Braille library in-charge.

“The mobile library was begun in 1980 after it was noticed that very few students from outside Central Delhi visited Braille Library at Lodhi Road. But the service shut down in 2000 after the diesel vehicle had to be replaced. It was reopened in 2005 and now we add about five-six members everyday,” says Ahluwalia.

The books of the mobile library are bought from two Braille presses that currently function in Delhi — one at the AICB and another at the National Federation of the Blind — as well as institutions like the National Institute for the Visually Handicapped (NIVH) in Dehradun.

More News at: http://www.indianexpress.com/news/the-mobile-braille-library/974564/0

A library to boost morale of visually challenged

Mysore, July 2, 2012, DHNS:

Books in Braille available for students from PUC to PG

Technology has gifted both good and bad to the society. The outcome can be decided by the path which we choose. And here is a person who chose best part of technology and making use of it to make visually challenged folks as better independent individuals.

For many, from birth, disability is part and parcel of visually challenged people. But to make these individuals more equipped, M P Shivaprakash from Divyajyothi Charitable Trust, has started a Braille library, a first of its kind in the city. A desire to help visually challenged people followed by constant hard work has got the structure of Braille library up in Gokulam.

“There were no Braille books available when I was a student. Whether they liked it or not I used to make others read for me. Lack of availability of technology and knowledge about it made me face ups and downs in the process of learning. But when I learnt about the technology and its advantages to mankind, especially to visually challenged people I decided to make use of technology to make visually challenged folks more learned ones,” said Shivaprakash.

Even in the era of information there is dearth of information for visually challenged people. In order to overcome this problem and to cater to the needs of the visually challenged students, the Braille library has come up.

Braille library has about 500 books which helps one to learn academic aspects along with general books like novels, story books, magazines, Kannada and English grammar books etc. Academic books in Braille are available for the students of first PUC to post graduation. Visually challenged folks can either refer to those books in the library or can borrow them to study on their own.

Along with Braille library the trust is running computer classes for visually challenged. Vocational training computer classes for adults and skill development classes for kids below 16 years are conducted. Spoken English classes, Braille teaching classes, yoga classes, cultural events and sports events are conducted in the trust for the benefit of visually challenged folks.

Suffering with disability has made Shivaprakash strong and explore new things, look into everything not with the vision of eye but with the vision of mind. The pain of disability has made him think about the suffering which people like him undergo in their lives.

The pain felt by him made him work for the betterment of visually challenged people. But lack of economic support to buy equipments, machineries and softwares, make us less competent, said Shivaprakash with bitterness.

For more news: http://www.deccanherald.com/content/261357/a-library-boost-morale-visually.html