BOOKS FOR THE BLIND

Evening Post, Volume CIX, Issue 56, 7 March 1930, Page 10

BOOKS FOR THE BLIND

BULKY AND EXPENSIVE

Some interesting remarks on the Braille books used by blind people were made by Mr. Clutha Mackenzie, Director of the Jubilee Institute for the Blind, at the conference of librarians in Auckland. Mr. Mackenzie said endeavours were now being made in England to arrive at a mutually acceptable Braille form. There was every prospect that a system embodying about a 5 per cent, increase in- the size of British volumes would be adopted, the Americans sacrificing practically all their past systems. . The main source of supply of publications, books, magazines, and ,music was the National Institute for the Blind, London, which had the best equipment yet devised, he said. A cloth bound volume costs from 8s to 10s to produce,. _ but through generous Government and private contributions was sold to British buyers at one-third of the cost. The American Braille Press in Paris, supported by American philanthropy, distributed excellent works free to libraries throughout the world.' The Braille Bible occupied 39 volumes; Gibbon's "Decline and Fall of the Koman Empire" ran to 37 volumes, and the average novel to from three to five volumes. Other methods of reading for the blind were at present the subject of research work in Europe and America. In New Zealand the generous grants totalling £45 per annum from City Councils of Auckland, Wellington, Christchurch, and Dunedin went far towards securing all fresh publications of the National Institute, said Mr. Mackenzie. The trustees of the institute and the blind themselves wished to express their appreciation of this help.