[4alabama] Good Washington Post Editorial

[David Andrews]

Editorial:


The Washington Post

Wednesday, May 30, 2007

Page A12 

Keep the Books Talking 

Congress should fund the digitization of a vital audio library for the blind.  

A half-million Americans stand in danger of losing their public library. They are the nation's blind, and their library is Talking Books, through which
the National Library Service for the Blind and Physically Handicapped of the Library of Congress (NLS) provides 500,000 Americans with free audio recordings
of about as many books. Unlike the "books on tape" that are sold at retail bookstores, these recordings are unabridged, extensive and diverse -- and are
designed for people who have no other way of reading print. 

Unfortunately, today's Talking Books technology is ready to meet its maker. The program currently uses half-speed audiotapes that patrons listen to on special
devices. These tape players, like the Talking Books record players that preceded them, are obsolete, and are no longer even being manufactured. To bring
the program into the 21st century, the NLS hopes to digitize its entire library and create new players. It has spent 17 years researching, building and
testing new products, and it is ready to manufacture a fully accessible flash-drive player. The Library of Congress has asked Congress to appropriate about
$76.4 million to produce the players and digitize thousands more books. 

A forthcoming Government Accountability Office report, however, may derail the NLS's plans. In a draft version of the report completed several weeks ago,
the GAO faulted the NLS for not considering existing commercial products such as CD players and iPods instead of creating a new device. This sounds like
a reasonable concern, given tales of exorbitant government spending on $792 doormats and $400 hammers. But creating special, noncommercial players is crucial
to the continued existence of Talking Books. Commercially available products, which often use visual screens and are not labeled in Braille, are not accessible
to the visually impaired. More important, to comply with U.S. copyright law, Talking Books can record and distribute only audio books that cannot be played
by commercial devices. 

Should the GAO keep this misguided criticism in its final report, lawmakers should not be swayed by it. Instead, Congress should fully fund Talking Books'
digital upgrade, a project that will grant many disabled Americans the same literary access afforded to the sighted.