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INCREASE FOR BRAILLE HANDCOPY

Mr. ANDREWS. For braille handcopy you are requesting an increase of $12,000. Tell us first the total amount spent for the braille handcopy. Mr. BRAY. The total amount for braille handcopy, Mr. Chairman, would be $37,000.

Mr. ANDREWS. Including the $12,000?

Mr. BRAY. That is correct.

you

do?

Mr. ANDREWS. Tell us about that program. What do Mr. BRAY. Approximately one-fourth of our staff consists of blind people who are specialists in braille.

Mr. ANDREWs. One-fourth of your staff?

Mr. BRAY. That is correct. These braille specialists, or braille instructors, conduct an ongoing correspondence course with sighted volunteers who desire to learn how to transcribe braille in order to transcribe books for our library, for the regional libraries, or for the special individual reading and educational needs of blind people in their communities. We certify annually 700 or 800 of these volunteers. Some of them, of course, fall by the wayside. Most of them, however, continue to transcribe for us.

The increase requested would enable us to add additional books to our collections and to the collections of the local regional libraries, using the free time and talents of these volunteer transcribers, our payment going for the raw materials, the braille paper, for binding the braille book, and proofreading the braille. For proofreading, payment is made to other blind people who proofread as a partial means of support. The braille typewriter with which the transcriber works is not paid from our costs. The volunteer obtains this at his own personal expense.

Mr. ANDREWs. Is it difficult for the average person to learn to read braille?

Mr. BRAY. The average person, if you are talking about the volunteers, does not learn to read it. He learns to transcribe it. Of course, they can read it in a sense, but they do not read it with their fingers. They read it with their eyes. The volunteer learning to transcribe braille will take at least a year, really, to begin to produce effectively. Mr. ANDREWS. I am speaking of the blind person who wants to learn to read braille with his fingers.

Mr. BRAY. A blind person learning to read braille would learn in anywhere from 6 months to a couple of years. This is the function of an individual's tenacity and ability, and so forth. It would be difficult to set an average time. If they are young people, they are taught in school. Presumably, this is a program thing and the average learning time is from a year to 2 years to teach a young person to read braille of increasing difficulty, just as a sighted person. An adult is often taught

at home.

Mr. ANDREWS. By whom?

Mr. BRAY. By home counselors or visitors who come to call only sporadically, and this process could be very long and discouraging. Mr. ANDREWS. That is the reason your talking book program is so much more popular than the braille, I assume.

Mr. BRAY. That is correct, sir. Some people are unable to read braille entirely, or are too aged to begin this learning process.

INCREASE FOR OFFICE SUPPLIES

Mr. ANDREWS. You are requesting an increase of $61,950 for supplies and materials. How much is in the base, and what is the total request?

Dr. MUMFORD. The $5,000 is the present base for office supplies. Mr. ANDREWS. How is it you have been getting by with $5,000 for supplies and materials, and you want an additional $61,950 this year? Dr. MUMFORD. The large item on the green sheet, page 191, Mr. Chairman, $61,950, is divided into several different items, of which office supplies is one, pamphlets and documents another, needles for the machines another. The base for those various items is $26,150.

INCREASE FOR PURCHASE OF NEEDLES

Mr. ANDREWS. I notice an increase of $56,600 is requested to purchase 35,000 needles for use in the conversion program and for general replacement in the more than 100,000 machines in use. What do those needles cost?

Mr. BRAY. The needles cost $1.99 a unit, sir. Incidentally, they are double diamond cartridge. There are two diamond needles in each cartridge, so you can get about 1,500 hours of play out of one side and flip it over and get the same play out of the other.

CONVERSION OF MACHINES TO THREE-SPEED

Recalling our work in previous years and noting the increase asked further along in the document, we are converting the old two-speed machines to three-speed so we will have the 813 r.p.m. speed on our old phonographs-the new ones have the 813.-This is in order to begin to produce, by the first of 1968, some talking books, notably magazines, on 813 r.p.m. records. This will enable us to get substantially more copies, particularly of magazines, and take up less room.

For example, by way of demonstration, Newsweek magazine, which is very popular, now takes about three of those 10-inch, 16 r.p.m. records; and here is the whole Newsweek on one 12-inch 813 r.p.m. record. We have been assured a copy of Newsweek recorded at 8 r.p.m. will cost about as much as the same thing does in print, which has obvious advantages.

Mr. ANDREWS. Do you mean you can record Newsweek as cheaply as you can buy the magazine?

Mr. BRAY. That is right, sir, at 813 r.p.m. Even at 16 for some books, we have recorded for less. I believe I gave the committee an example last year of a talking book which required only six 10-inch, 16 r.p.m. records at $3, a dollar for the container, which is $4; and the hard copy print book that we reproduce costs $6 on the stands.

Mr. ANDREWS. The container is a one-time expense, is it not?

Mr. BRAY. Since we last met with the committee, we have worked out with the two recording studios a plan to reuse a number of containers, particularly the ones that are used to hold recorded magazines.

Mr. ANDREWS. That is what I mean. You can reuse them. Once you buy the container, you can use it for years, I would assume.

Mr. BRAY. That is right.

Mr. YATES. Who makes the record?

RECORDING OF MAGAZINES

Mr. BRAY. In the case of Newsweek, sir, this is recorded at the American Printing House for the Blind, in Louisville, Ky. We use mostly men's voices, varying the voices in the magazines, to break it up a little bit.

Mr. YATES. How is it done? Do they just read Newsweek from cover to cover?

Mr. BRAY. Yes. They do not read the ads. They read the regular content, the regular features, such as the editorials, and so forth, but no reading of advertisements.

Mr. ANDREWS. Is that the only magazine you record?

Mr. BRAY. No, sir.

Mr. ANDREWS. What others?

Mr. BRAY. We subscribe to Newsweek. We do not pay for the total recording of it, but the Library pays, through subscription, for a portion of the recording cost. We bear the total cost for other magazinesthe one we began most recently in response to request was Look magazine. We do Good Housekeeping, Atlantic, Harpers, American Heritage, Sports Illustrated, and Changing Times.

Mr. ANDREWS. Of course, when they use a record of a current magazine, it is not good for long, is it?

Mr. BRAY. No, sir. The use for it falls off substantially. That is when your container and your old record are sent back to the source, and they reuse the container and grind up the records.

Mr. ANDREWS. Has there been much interest in your program of recording magazines?

Mr. BRAY. Very much, sir.

Mr. YATES. I can understand why there would be a loss of interest in a magazine like Newsweek after a few weeks, although I can see why some of its features would remain of interest, but why do not your records of other magazines have a longer use?

Mr. BRAY. Compared to Newsweek, they do have a longer use, sir. Mr. YATES. Does the record deteriorate? Is that the point? Or is it that the contents become obsolete?

Mr. BRAY. I would say it is partly the content. The record does not deteriorate. It will last 4 or 5 years over repeated readings. I suspect there is the same pressure of new reading that operates certainly on me. When my magazines start piling up, I do not keep up with the old month. I just never get back to it.

Mr. YATES. How long does it take to play that record of Newsweek? Mr. BRAY. It takes three 10-inch, 16 r.p.m. records. That is 1 hour 20 minutes apiece. That is 4 hours.

Mr. ANDREWS. What does the reader do with the Newsweek record when he finishes it?

Mr. BRAY. He returns it to his library.

Mr. ANDREWS. He returns all records to the library?

Mr. BRAY. That is correct, of current reporting, all magazines which he reads are returned to the library. In the case of Newsweek and of Reader's Digest, two magazines of which we buy a number of copies but which we do not support in whole as we do for Sports Illustrated, are available on records for sale to blind people who can afford to subscribe to them.

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Mr. ANDREWS. How many Newsweek records do you record weekly? Mr. BRAY. Newsweek is recorded in about 1,400 copies, and we purchase about half of those for our regional library use.

Mr. ANDREWS. Is that enough to supply the demand you have for Newsweek?

Mr. BRAY. No, sir. We are constantly being asked to increase it. The cooperating libraries that I mentioned are given at least once a year the opportunity to increase their quotas of recorded magazines. For instance, Sports Illustrated started out at 200 or 300 copies-we are now pressing 800 or more. The demand for magazines is going right up. Mr. YATES. To which libraries are they made available? Mr. BRAY. All of the 34 regional libraries.

Mr. YATES. Is the Chicago Public Library one of your regional libraries?

Mr. BRAY. Yes, sir.

Mr. YATES. And the person who wants this record goes down to the library and can take it out on his card?

Mr. BRAY. He sends in by mail usually, sir. Very few blind people go to their library. He writes to them and the book is then mailed to him.

Mr. ANDREWS. If a man asks for Newsweek, I assume he gets it every week without renewing his request for it.

Mr. BRAY. That is correct. Once he has requested it, he becomes a regular reader.

INCREASE TO PURCHASE BOOKS IN BRAILLE

Mr. ANDREWS. The largest increase you request is $1,156,834 for equipment. What is the total amount requested, including the base and the increase just noted?

Mr. BRAY. $4,994,000. Under equipment, Mr. Chairman, first of all is a $50,000 increase requested for books in raised characters, books in braille, in other words. This will enable us to provide an additional 25 titles of books in braille and three more magazines in braille. The braille readers want more magazines, just as do other readers.

Mr. ANDREWS. Which three magazines are those?

Mr. BRAY. We have not selected them yet.

Mr. ANDREWS. I would like to know what is the total amount you plan.

Mr. ROSSITER. $3,837,000.

Mr. ANDREWS. Does that include the $1,156,000?

Mr. ROSSITER. No, sir.

Mr. ANDREWS. That would give you a total of?

Mr. ROSSITER. $4,994,000.

Mr. ANDREWS. Now we will take up the breakdown of your $4,999.000. The green sheets show the increase for each item. Books in raised characters you have already discussed.

Mr. BRAY. I just discussed that.

INCREASE FOR SOUND REPRODUCTIONS

Mr. ANDREWS. Sound reproduction.

Mr. BRAY. Sound reproduction is another phrase for the talking books. The base was $1,886,000. It is now $2,100,000.

I might say, sir, that the three items which here are labeled equipment constitute, of course, the core of the service. The braille books, the record books, are the real meat and potatoes, as it were.

Mr. ANDREWS. I was just about to ask if that was not the heart of the program.

Mr. BRAY. That is the heart of the program.

Incidentally, looking back over the years, I believe it was the Senate which 1 or 2 years past has had a pie chart of where our appropriation goes inserted in the record. In sum, a little over 90 percent of our total appropriation goes for books and book-related equipment.

So, we are talking about the hard core of the program.

Going back to the increase of $214,000 for disk recording, this would enable us to add 50 titles of talking books, making only a total of 550 titles in talking books for the year, which, although it is a substantial number, one must compare this total recording to the printed output of some 15,000 to 18,000 printed books.

Mr. ANDREWS. What is the total amount you have in your library? Mr. BRAY. The Library of Congress regional library would have approximately 3,000 titles.

Mr. ANDREWS. You are adding about 550 titles annually.

Mr. BRAY. 550 titles this year, that is correct. The reason I am not able to give you precise figures, after some years, and depending upon the amount of use, a record wears out. In one library you might find the use has been less than that in a large library.

Mr. ANDREWS. You say an average of 800 copies of books and magazines will be purchased?

INCREASE FOR MAGNETIC TAPE

Mr. BRAY. That is correct. The third item requested in the increase is for standard magnetic tape.

Mr. ANDREWS. Describe that for us. You have not touched on that. How is it used? How is it made?

Mr. BRAY. Books on magnetic tape are provided by volunteer readers at no cost for their time and reading ability. They also provide their own tape recorders. It is similar to the volunteer braillist. The volunteer recorder records books on standard tape at our request. The books have the standard characteristics of being on a 7-inch reel, recorded at 334 inches per second on two tracks, which means each reel has 3 hours of reading on it. The blind person has to have his own tape. player, and, of course, many of them do.

Mr. ANDREWS. The only thing you furnish is the talking machine. Mr. BRAY. That is correct.

Mr. ANDREWS. You have three ways of furnishing blind and physically handicapped people with books, magazines, et cetera. Braille, talking machines, and magnetic tape.

Mr. BRAY. That is correct.

Mr. ANDREWS. You furnish the braille books?

Mr. BRAY. We furnish braille books only for blind people who have learned it.

Mr. ANDREWS. You furnish the man talking machines?

Mr. BRAY. That is correct.

Mr. ANDREWS. You furnish the tape?

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