LIBRARY FOR BLIND

Wanganui Chronicle, Volume 79, Issue 266, 13 November 1935, Page 5

LIBRARY FOR BLIND

LARGE ADDITIONS MADE SCHEME COSTS £22.000 bulky books in braille With the completion of its £22,000 rebuilding scheme the National Library for the Blind now has space in its premises in Westminster for more than 250,000 volume®.

Twelve hundred bulky books embossed in Braille are circulated from the library every day to blind readers all over the country, and in many parts of the Empire. Miss O. I. Prince, the librarian, told an interviewer that the reconstructed premises are now so spacious that it is hoped no further enlargement will be needed for another 30 years. During the building operations 70,000 volume.s had to be temporarily moved into a neighbouring warehouse, and the work of distribution was carried on without serious interruption throughout the reconstruction. Each of the five floors of the loftv library contains hundreds of feet of steel shelves, while on the ground floor

there is spacious accommodation fol office and packing work. “One of the principal difficulties with whivh we are always faced is the great bulk of a Braille volume,” said Miss Prince. “An ordinary novel, when transcribed for the blind, fills five or six Braille volumes, each measuring 14in. by Ilin., and weighing 51b. Among our new books are Robert Graves’ ‘I, Claudius,’ in eight Braille volumes, and Zweig’s ‘Marie Antoinette’ in nine.” More than 500 voluntary workers spend their leisure transcribing new books into Braille. All their work ig carefully examined and the pages are treated with strengthening solution of shellac and methylated s-pirits before they are bound.