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...

  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 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...