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Dominion, Volume 20, Issue 78, 27 December 1926, Page 6

Tn Christchurch there are seventeen blind people who have free use of the Braille books in the public librarv (states the “Lyttelton Times”). Of these, six are heavy readers, but the remainder do not read a great deal. Bv paving £lO 10s. a year to the National Librarv for the Blind, London, the librarv receives eighty books a vear in quarterly consignments of twenty These remain in Christchurch for three months before being posted back. The Dunedin. Auckland and Wellington public libraries work under the same system and there was a proposal that a system of exchange should be instituted among the libraries, but so far nothing has been done in the matter The National Librarv for the Blind was founded in ISS2 bv Miss Arnold, a blind woman, and her friend, Mrs Dow. Thev started work in a small room at Hampstead. Miss Arnold acting as librarian, and lent out, at a charge of a peiinv a week. *o a little circle of blind readers’ the few books that thev were able to produce bv hand From that smal’ beginning has grown a librarv of W.OOO volumes, which arc circulated throughout the Empire. There are 10,000 readers to whom hooks are lent free, and the lib irrv has on its shelves a wide rance of books of fiction, theology, science, sociology, poetry, foreign literature and music.. >