2012-05-30-NLSBARD
Seminars@Hadley
The Keys to NLS BARD
Presented by
Ruth Hemphill
Moderated by
Douglas Walker
May 30, 2012
Douglas Walker
Welcome to Seminars@Hadley. My name is Douglas Walker. I am an instructor of Assisted Technology here at Hadley and I will be your moderator for today’s seminar. Today’s seminar topic is The Keys to NLS BARD. Your presenter today is Ruth Hemphill.
Ruth has been the Director of the Tennessee Library for the Blind and Physically Handicapped since late 1999. Prior to moving to Tennessee, Ruth was the Senior Librarian at the Wolfner Library for the Blind and Physically Handicapped in Missouri. Before that Ruth spent her career in various large and small public libraries in central Missouri and the St. Louis area.
I’ve had the distinct pleasure of presenting with Ruth in the past. A matter of fact we’ve presented on NLS content before and I know that you’re going to get a lot of really valuable information out of today’s seminar. So without further delay let me welcome today’s presenter, Ruth Hemphill. Ruth, I’ll hand the microphone over to you.
Ruth Hemphill
Thank you so much, Doug. I am so happy to be here and I’m so grateful to Doug for asking me to do this. It’s the first time I have conducted a seminar like this and it’s a good experience for me as I started to panic. He swears he will help me out, so I hope you’ll bear with me.
I bring you greetings from Chuck Sherrill, the State Librarian and Archivist from Tennessee, and Trey Hargett, the Tennessee Secretary of State. And before Doug panics and thinks I’m going to talk all about Tennessee I also would be bringing you greetings from Karen Keninger, the new Director of the National Library Service for the Blind and Physically Handicapped, and James Billington, the Library of Congress, if they knew I was doing this. However, since it’s the first time I’ve done one and I wanted the privilege and I didn’t want them to take it away from me I didn’t tell them I was doing this, but that tells you a little bit about where we fit in government.
The Library Service for the Blind and Physically Handicapped is a federal program, and it is a free program except for the tax dollars we all pay, but there is Library for the Blind and Physically Handicapped in every state in the United States except Wyoming. However, residents of Wyoming are not short changed. They too can get the service. The state of Wyoming contracts with the state of Utah to provide the service to eligible residents of Wyoming. I started to say Wyominans, but I’m not sure that’s correct.
As I mentioned, this is a free program. It is a state and federal program, and in some areas it’s also a local program and I’ll get to that in a minute. But if you’re wondering where the library is in your area you can go to the National Library Service for the Blind and Physically Handicap’s website. It’s When you get to that page, and if I was skilled at doing Power Point I would show you that page at this point, but I’m not so I’m going to tell you about it. There is a link at the top of the page. It says “find a library.” You can click on that link and you can click on the state that you are in and it will give you the Libraries for the Blind that are in the state.
Most states of the United States the Library for the Blind is housed and administered by the state library. However, there are some, and that’s how Tennessee is set up, however there are some states whose Library for the Blind are with individual rehab services for the blind in that state. There are some that have them in public libraries. Some states have sub regional libraries. Tennessee only has one regional library, but many states such as Georgia, Florida, have lots of sub regional libraries scattered around the state. It just depends on how that state decides to organize the program.
Some states have two regional libraries. I’m thinking of California. For example, they have a regional library for northern California and the state library in Sacramento. They also have a regional library for the residents of southern California in the Brail Institute for the Blind and they also have sub regional libraries in local public libraries. So it varies. As I said, you can check that website and you will find where there is libraries located in your area and it has their contact information, telephone numbers, websites, that sort of thing.
Before I go any further, I want to discuss the term handicapped because when I do presentations like this or whenever I do a community event I often amass why do we still use the term handicapped because it’s not really considered politically correct in the disability community. Well, I’ve been, as Doug mentioned, I’ve been in this service, the library service for quite a while and I’ve looked up the term handicapped. Miriam Webster’s online dictionary defines handicapped as having a physical or mental disability. It defines disabled as incapacitated by illness or injury. Also physically or mentally impaired in a way that substantially limits activity especially in relation to employment or education. So there’s really not that much difference in the two terms, but in Tennessee we still have Tennessee Library for the Blind and Physically Handicapped in our name because our administration feels that as long as the National Library Service for the Blind and Physically Handicapped, and I’ll call that in less off and on during this presentation, has it in their name we will continue because we are a cooperating network of libraries and we operate under their auspices as well as under our local state library.
I have been told it would take an act of Congress to change the National Library Services name. The National Library Service is part of the Library of Congress and it would take an act of Congress to change the name, so it hasn’t been done. It doesn’t mean it will never happen, but it hasn’t at this point.
However, many of the local Libraries for the Blind, or as I may say LBPHs, have adopted various different names. In Washington State, it’s the Talking Book and Brail Library. In some of the Florida sub regionals, it’s a Special Needs Library. In Georgia, their state agency which has within the state library and it has the regional library it is called GLASS, stands for Georgia Libraries for Accessible State Services. However, as I mentioned Georgia has some sub regionals and they have a variety of names from Talking Book Library to Outreach and [Evaluation] Center. So it’s up to the individual name and we’ll just go with that.
What is the service of the Library for the Blind? Mostly, I hope no, I’ve noticed people that are from all over the country. I’m really pleased to see so many people. Some from various associations for the blind and I’m hoping you’re familiar with the program. However, I am going to talk about the program in more general terms and how to sign up for the program since Doug is doing another seminar later on downloading, but I will mention that and talk about how you get to that too.
Basically the service is a public library service for any resident of the United States who has a physical disability which prevents them from reading standard print. The most common disability that our patrons have is blindness of course, but it’s not just for people who are blind. Anyone who needs large print to read, in other words are low vision, is eligible for this service. Anyone who has a manual dexterity problem which prevents them from using print, such as cerebral palsy, arthritis, something like that. If it prevents them from comfortably holding a book and turning pages they are eligible to get our materials.
Anyone with a reading disability can get our service also. Another category that I often don’t remember to discuss is people who have temporary disabilities. We have a poster that shows a lady who has one broken leg and two broken arms. She was in a car wreck. Obviously, her head looks just fine, she can see just fine, but she can’t hold a book and turn pages, so she is eligible for the audio book service for as long as she is in that condition.
I mentioned various states having the service and everyone that lives in the United States. Any resident of the United States can get the service, and no we do not ask people’s legal status. They just have to have a U.S. address, but any U.S. citizen can get the service abroad. They are served directly by the National Library Service and Library of Congress, but they can get it anywhere in the world that they happen to reside.
In fact, we just recently had one of our patrons contact us thinking he had to cancel the service. He’s 75 years old and he’s moving to Great Britain, and we said well, not really. If you’re a U.S. citizen and can provide us with your passport number you can still get the service. He was very excited to learn that. Now, if he ever decides to change his citizenship, then he’ll need to get the service from the United Kingdom’s Library for the Blind, and they do have a similar service. So that works pretty well.
What do we have in our collection? Our collection is, I think I mentioned, is basically the types of books and magazines one would find a public library or bookstore. In other words, we have bestselling novels, we have The Hunger Games as I told youthat’s so popular right now. We have children’s books. We have nonfiction. We have books on getting your GED. We have biographies. We have all types of things. The only thing that’s different is our format.
I like to say when I make presentations in Tennessee that we have the fun part of the collection for the Tennessee State Library and Archives because the Tennessee State Library and Archives has lots of stuff on Tennessee history and genealogy, but we have the fun things to read. The format though is different. We have books in Brail, books and magazines both. We have books in audio format, and some Libraries for the Blind have extra things. Some have enhanced this program by adding large print collections. Some have added descriptive video collections. Some loan assistive technology devices. It just varies, but those things are not part of the federal program, so it depends on the individual local funding of the individual library.
Types of books we have, as I mentioned we have books in Brail. The new Director of Library Service -- excuse me, the new Director of the National Library Service is blind herself and reads Brail, so she is very interested in continuing the Brail collection and getting Brail brought more to the forefront for the program because many people who do not have disability or are not blind don’t feel that Brail is necessary anymore. However, those of us who are familiar with Brail know it is very necessary. Audio books are wonderful. They do a great thing, but if one can read Brail and you’re totally blind you’re more likely to be employed and live a more fulfilling life.
How would you get the service? You can get the service by signing up, filling out an application and mailing it to your local library, and by local library I mean your Library for the Blind and Physically Handicapped. On that National Library Service webpage, there is a generic application form that you can fill out and any Library for the Blind in the country will accept it. However, it does have the address of the National Library Service on it.
You have to mail in the application to the library because it is a federal requirement that we have the original signature of the certifying authority. Every application will have a space for someone to sign the application certifying that the person who is applying for the service has a disability that prevents them from reading standard print. That certifying authority cannot be a member of the applicant’s family. It can be a librarian. It can be a doctor. It can be a nurse. It can be a social worker. It can be some type of caregiver, but it cannot be a family member.
In the case of a person with a reading disability it must be a physician, but only in that instance. Now, physician is fine for all disabilities. I don’t mean to imply that physicians can’t sign other applications, but if the person’s only disability that prevents them from reading print is a reading disability the federal government requires us to obtain a physician’s signature.
I’m sometimes asked by people, but I paid for my son to go to medical school, why can’t he sign my application? And my answer is always that I’m sorry he cannot, but I’m sure he knows a doctor who will sign it for you and that’s usually the case, they do.
The application though if you use the generic one on the National Library Service’s website and mail it to the National Library Service it’s going to slow up your getting service because since 911 much mail is delivered to Washington, D.C. is still slower than it used to be and I know that’s been over ten years now, but it still has slowed down the process. Plus when the National Library Service gets the application they will in turn forward it to what they consider the local library. So unless it’s a U.S. citizen abroad the application is going to be forwarded on to Tennessee, Montana, whatever state serves that mailing address and then it will be processed for service.
So I highly recommend you contact your local library whether you look at their web page and find the application on the website, or you call them and have one mailed to you, either way works, and you can get the service. If you do not have internet access and cannot get the service you’re probably not participating in this seminar, but you can usually contact your local public library and they will probably be able to point you in the right direction to get the application if they don’t have one on hand that they can send you themselves.
The application form may look long when you get it. It’s about six pages, but part of that is because it is in large print, and we do ask some information, but nothing terribly personal other than your reading interests and your mailing address. We will ask your name and address. We will ask what disability prevents you from reading standard print. That’s probably kind of personal, but the funding for the program is only for people with disabilities, so we have to know that.
We will also ask your birth date. Some people don’t want to give us their birth date, but it’s really helpful to have because sometimes there’s more than one person with the same name, and it’s real easy to tell them apart by the birth date usually because usually the same name and birth date are not the same.
We will also ask you, as I mentioned, to get the certifying authority’s signature we’ll need their name and address. As you probably know, physicians do not write terribly legibly. I know I’m stereotyping them, but often they don’t and so it’s nice to get their name and address printed also.
Another thing we’ll ask on the application is what types of books you like. We ask this because many Libraries for the Blind do service through the U.S. mail, so we don’t necessarily know what you’ve read in the past, we don’t know what your reading interests are, you can request specific titles and we will send catalogs to you that tell you the catalogs that are in a collection, or you can go online to the National Library Service’s website and it has a catalog.
However, if you tell us the types of things you like to read if the things you have requested are not available, in other words someone’s already borrowed them before you and we don’t have it sitting on the shelf, if we know what types of things you like to read like mysteries, westerns, cook books, we’ll send you something so you will have something to read even if it’s not the book you have asked for. We will eventually send the book you’ve asked for too when it comes back, but we do suggest that you tell us what types of things you like also.
I mentioned the catalogs, there is one online. The Library for the Blind can also send you the catalog. We have a publication called Talking with Toppings, but for Brail readers we have Brail Book Review. This publication lists the newest things that have been added to the collection. It comes out every other month and it’s in large print. It’s in audio. Right now the audio for it is on cassette and I’ll mention that a little more later, but it’s also in Brail for the Brail Book Review for those of you who read Brail. It comes every other month, gives you the newest titles. There’s also an annual compilation of it called Digital Talking Books Plus or Brail Books that comes out every year. If you happen to get the annual compilation of it you don’t need to keep those issues of Talking with Toppings and Brail Book Review because they are in that annual compilation.