PLUK News feed

NLS Opens Braille and Audio Reading Download (BARD) to Individual Patrons

After almost three years of operating successfully as a pilot, the NLS download site, Braille and Autdio Reading Download (BARD), has moved into a new phase. The permanent version of BARD was launched on April 30, 2009, offering NLS patrons unlimited access to more than fifteen thousand digital audio-books and nearly one thousand issues of forty audio magazines. Braille books and magazines are currently available online through the NLS Web-Braille service.

(excerpt from National Library Service for the Blind and Physically Handicapped: July-September 2009, Vol. 41, No. 3)

For more information, visit the NLS website at http://www.loc.gov/nls/

Blind/Deaf Athlete Clears Different Hurdles On The Track

Link: Athlete  Alfredo Castaneda reaches out with both hands and grabs a baton. He studies it with his fingers, learning its weight, its texture, its shape. "Is it hollow?" he asks softly. "Yes it is," comes the reply. "How do you pass it?" Castaneda asks. Two Glencoe High School runners search for the words to explain what they are unable to demonstrate for their teammate. Castaneda is blind and hears only with hearing aids. Assistant track coach John Carter steps in to describe the technique for one runner passing a baton to another. Castaneda tilts his head and smiles. He gets it. "Do you see?" Carter asks, recognizing that Castaneda has made a mental picture of the movement he has described. "Yeah." Castaneda, a 15-year-old freshman, came out for Glencoe's track team this spring. The 5-foot-4-inch 100-pounder runs and throws the discus. Teammates and coaches marvel at his outsized determination to be like everyone else.