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Pali Lee is legally blind, but that doesn't stop the 77-year-old Honolulu resident from devouring an average 20 books a month. Library encourages use
of ‘talking book’ programPatrons with various handicaps
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can borrow recorded audio booksBy Lisa Asato
lasato@starbulletin.comShe plops her "talking books" into a cassette player, presses "play" and listens as the stories unfold.
"As long as we have our talking books we can surf the (world)," she said. "We're still in there folks, we're seeing it all."
Last week, the Library for the Blind & Physically Handicapped on Kapahulu Avenue kicked off a five-month "Take a Talking Book" campaign to reach more seniors whose visual or physical impairments make it hard for them to read traditional books.
Already, 1,500 patrons of all ages are registered for the free reading program statewide, but the state says more than 2,300 senior citizens in Hawaii and Guam are eligible. The program, a joint federal and state venture, offers 65,000 book titles ranging from John Fowles' "The French Lieutenant's Woman" to how-tos to cookbooks. That is in addition to recordings of 46 national magazines such as Good Housekeeping and U.S. News & World Report.
"It's the best kept secret," said Fusako Miyashiro, the branch manager. "They can order books by calling us, through e-mail, through fax, all these different ways."
What's more, says patron Sumiko Sakamoto, the library takes requests. Once it provided her with a recording of a book by Japan-born, Waipahu-raised author Barbara Kawakami that previously was not available.
"In that way we added another book to the library," she said. "The library is real good about that."
The public-awareness campaign is underway in 14 states, with the National Library Service for the Blind & Physically Handicapped, Library of Congress, paying the cost of brochures, posters and public service announcements in print, radio and television, said Jane Caulton, a writer-editor with the federal library service. Caulton and Miyashiro will visit neighbor islands this week to promote the program there.
The Hawaii Library Foundation is offering support as well. It awarded a $2,000 grant to pay the cost of printing ads to post in buses, hospitals and libraries, and is tapping private corporations to raise $16,000 more to sustain that campaign through September and pay for movie-screen ads.
The library service is selecting 1,000 titles to be converted to digital audio within the next year with hopes of getting 20,000 titles available by 2008.
Patrons, who must be certified by a medical professional, include "anyone who has problems reading a regular book, or holding a book or turning a page," Caulton said.
Charlene Ota, who was born legally blind, liked the program's convenience.
"Everything comes by mail, and they loan the cassette player to us, cassette books come in little boxes, they have cards you flip over and just drop them off (in the mail) when you're done," said Ota, a part-time Braille transcriber and computer trainer who has used the service for 40 years.
"When I started out with the library service, it was like the size of record albums. Things are portable now."
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Library for the Blind
& Physically Handicapped
>> Phone: 733-8444 >> Address: 402 Kapahulu Ave., behind the Waikiki-Kapahulu Public Library >> Web site, with links to catalogs and more: www.hcc.hawaii.edu/hspls/oahu/lbph.html