An enabling tool

Updated on: Wednesday, January 18, 2012

Visually impaired persons pursuing higher education will now be able to browse for books online in their mother tongues. Though there was no dearth of resources in English available online for the blind, this is the first time that an attempt has been made to provide the material in multiple Indian languages, says Mr Dipendra Manocha, President, Daisy Forum of India, an access organisation for the disabled.

On the occasion of the 203rd birth anniversary of Louis Braille, Union Minister for Social Justice and Empowerment Mukul Wasnik launched the website in Mumbai. The library has been created by National Institute of Visually Handicapped, Dehradun and the Xavier's Research Centre for Visually Challenged, Mumbai. Around 12,000 books in 10 languages are to be made available.

The library's main function is to provide downloadable soft books in Braille. It will also be a lead tool for sharing books between organisations. By maintaining a catalogue of all organisations that a particular book is available with, it will avoid duplication of pressing the same book again and again, explains Mr Manocha. Till now, 13 organisations have provided entries on the website, but going forward, more are expected to do so, he adds.

The books can also be read on a refreshable Braille display screen (RBDS). Around 50 university libraries across the country will be equipped with RBDS and connected to the main server.

By using the power of information technology, it hopes to bring down the associated costs. Use of the online library is free. The website has been designed to be targeted towards both librarians who upload books and end users who want to browse.

A big drawback of the library in its present format is the lack of audio books, which are widely used by the blind. But Mr Manocha assures that by 2012-13, they will also be made available.

There are 2.8 lakh visually challenged people seeking education in the country today. Of them, only about 29,000 get a regular supply of Braille books, says Mr K Ramkrishna, General Secretary of the National Association for the Blind.

“Even though India has a Braille printing capacity of 13 crore pages annually, only about two crore Braille pages get printed every year,” he says.

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