World Braille Day

  Today, the 4th of January is ‘ World Braille Day ’. A day to honor Louis Braille , the inventor of the braille system . Born in France in 180, Louis Braille lost his sight at the age of three after an accident. Despite his disability, he excelled in his education and went on to develop the braille system at the age of 15. He based the system on a system of raised dots that was already in use, but he simplified and improved upon it.

The United Nations General Assembly Resolution A/RES/73/161 established January 4th as World Braille Day ,  in December 2018 calls to raise awareness of Braille's importance for human rights, education, and inclusion for blind and visually impaired peopl e. It recognizes Braille as essential for freedom of expression, access to information, and full societal participation , honoring Louis Braille's birthday. The General Assembly,  Recognizing that multilingualism, as a core value of the Organization, contributes to the achievement of the purposes and principles of the United Nations, as set out in Articles 1 and 2 of the Charter of the United Nations, Recognizing also that the United Nations pursues multilingualism as a means of promoting, protecting and preserving diversity of languages and cultures globally, as well as of improving the efficiency, performance and transparency of the Organization, Reaffirming its Resolution 53/199 of 15 December 1998 and Resolution 61/...

  The development of devices which would make it possible to store braille print digitally on compact cassettes in order to be recalled for reading, was already one of the topics on the technical conference in London in April, 19. The advantage of this procedure lies mainly in the possibility to have a large quantity of text on a single cassette. Some of those devices are already in the stage of practical test, so, for instance, the "Digi-Cassette" in France and the "Braillocord (BRS.76)" which was designed by the Heinrich-Hertz-Institut in Berlin and developed by the AID. There is, further on, the "Braillex", designed by Professor Boldt (Dortmund) which is said to come out in a series for testing in the course of this year. Supplied with a fast automatic station-scanner it is specially suited for the storage of dictionaries and files. I had the opportunity to test the BRS.76 thoroughly. Though its stage of development is remarkable there will be, no doubt...

  Introduction  In common with sighted people, the blind during the last fifty years have enjoyed a continuously increasing range of benefits which have come from the rapid and often bewildering advances in scientific knowledge that have been made in less than a normal life-time. Not the least of these benefits is the increasing volume and variety of braille literature which is becoming available through the development and increasing use of automated methods of production. But while it is highly desirable that this search for yet more efficient ways or producing p books should continue, it is surely no less desirable ( that thought should be given to devising ways of making braille a more satisfying and a more easily accessible ( reading medium. Studies already completed or now under way emphasise the need for a critical review of current methods of teaching braille reading and of the rationale for them. The purpose of this short paper is to describe briefly the research that...

  One of the most important problems braille printing houses and libraries have to face today is, beyond any doubt, the accurate transfer from the ink print to the braille book, especially with regard to the transcription of textbooks for the different subjects of the various educational levels: primary, secondary, vocational and university education without neglecting, of course, the difficulties which one encounters in other books, which while not belonging to any planned instruction, on account of their specific contents, also present certain difficulties. The book editing service, or if this does not exist, the transcribers in printing houses and libraries are the ones who first have to cope with the transcription problems the ink print book present, so that the braille book provides the blind student or reader with the same scientific or cultural information which is contained in the normal one. The following two principles have to be borne in mind: (a) That the blind have to ...

  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...

  It is nigh impossible to estimate the braille-reading population in the United States. Louis Goldish has made H a couple of stabs and so have others including the Library of Congress, Division for the Blind and Physically «) Handicapped. Neither Mr. Goldish nor we have done much ' more than scratch the surface: the sources for his figures « were secondary sources, and DBPH's most recent effort in i assessing braille readership arose from a loosely constructed survey with limited objectives. If one attempts an honest estimate or projection of **] this readership by looking at a variety of national sources, one can see, I believe, that the braille reader- **] ship appears to be at a plateau in terms of numbers. -> There have been many efforts, however, to provide improved ^ reading services to braille readers, some coming from the J United States and some from other countries. It is these efforts to meet braille readers' needs that have taken up a good deal of my time in...