World Braille Day

  Introduction  The framework of this report has been defined with precision. Modern techniques are obviously the utilisation of data processing and electronics, and traditional methods are the embossing of sheets of paper or plastic. However, we will recall some characteristics of the traditional techniques and, at the end, we will mention briefly the non-traditional methods, such as the elimina tion of braille paper and the utilisation of the normal method of printing embossed characters for the production of braille. According to traditional techniques, the cooperation of a non-blind person is used. This person should have, according to his abilities, the knowledge of grade 1 braille, contracted braille, braille music or mathematical notations. The instruments used are the LOUIS BRAILLE writing frame or slate, the 6 key braille writer and the stereo typing machines. These latter permit the embossing of aluminium plates, indispensable for the press printing of a large number...

  Scientific and technical development has notably in creased in the last few decades. There is talk of the penetration of the scientific-technical revolution in all countries of the world and in all spheres of human life, including the new devices and aids for the blind and visually imapired. We, the directors of printing houses and libraries for the blind, have the responsibility of taking immediate and full advantage, in our work, of the results of the rapid growth of this modernisation and technical development. The organisation of braille libraries, of recorded literature, and of books, magazines and manuals in large print for the partially sighted need not be isolated from the general development. Also in this same aspect it is necessary to search for new ways, new work methods, inas much as both the blind and visually imapaired represent at the present time a significant factor, which must be integrated, as an important part of society and state in normal life. The historica...

  Scientific and technical progress is correctly refer red to as one of the most important social phenomena of the present time. It has been instrumental in the intro duction of unprecedented changes in all fields of human endeavour. Its action is increasingly being extended to the solution of a whole series of matters which concern blind people all over the world. However, and this is true in any field of activity, the scientific and technical progress becomes a powerful creative force only if social conditions are favourable. Its achievements depend to a large extent on the economic power of society as well as on political and other institutions. ( The problems of the blind are deeply social and this is why the role of scientific and technical progress 1 depends entirely on the social policy of a given community, RP* HI rIt is very well known that in the USSR, in the countries of socialist cooperation and in the developed P countries of Europe and Asia great achievements have bee...

  Introduction  The Nederlandsche Blindenbibliotheek (Dutch Library for the Blind) has been lending books to the blind since 1895. We started off with braille books only. In 1958 talking books on open-reel tapes were introduced and the number of readers increased rapidly. Nowadays we mainly lend talking books on compact cassettes. The talking book on compact cassette is by far the easiest to use and especially many elderly people benefitted from it. Since we introduced the compact cassette in 1972 the lending figures raised from 0.6 million to 2.2 million in 1978. Evidently this rapid growth imposed great changes on our library. In the early days a team of a few people registered the books in the catalogue, lent them to the blind and put them back on the shelves when they were returned. At the moment three departments are in charge of all this: The catalogue department registers books in the catalogue and selects books to be added to our collection. The lending department sele...

  Introduction  A set of programs oriented to natural language pro cessing have been designed and implemented. These programs were first applied to French language analysis and led to creation of the PIAF system (Programmes Interactifs dfAnalyse du Fran§ais). Some applications are operational mainly in automatic information retrieval where the PIAF system performs two tasks in parallel: 1. Data acquisition and control, 2. Production of simple or compound key words. Following a request from the Centre National des Arts et Metiers, we have developed the contracted braille transla tion and editing of French texts with respect to typo graphic codes from programs and basic algorithms of the PIAF system. General Principles of the PIAF System  We propose to the average user a set of tools to define and handle textual datas, under the control of an editor: i) The definition tools are facilities to create and perform interactive updating of the dictionaries and models of the selec...