From akriman@darwin.helios.nd.edu Fri Mar 10 09:56:26 2000 Received: from mxu2.u.washington.edu (mxu2.u.washington.edu [140.142.32.9]) by lists.u.washington.edu (8.9.3+UW99.09/8.9.3+UW99.09) with ESMTP id JAA22156 for ; Fri, 10 Mar 2000 09:56:25 -0800 Received: from darwin.helios.nd.edu (akriman@darwin.helios.nd.edu [129.74.250.114]) by mxu2.u.washington.edu (8.9.3+UW00.02/8.9.3+UW99.09) with ESMTP id JAA03961 for ; Fri, 10 Mar 2000 09:56:25 -0800 Received: (from akriman@localhost) by darwin.helios.nd.edu (8.9.2/8.9.2) id MAA00018 for classics@u.washington.edu; Fri, 10 Mar 2000 12:56:16 -0500 (EST) Date: Fri, 10 Mar 2000 12:56:16 -0500 (EST) From: Alfred M Kriman Message-Id: <200003101756.MAA00018@darwin.helios.nd.edu> To: classics@u.washington.edu Subject: Re: Audiotapes David Meadows asks > Are there any individuals or organizations out there who put Classics > textbooks (stuff for courses), papers (ditto), both in English and say, > Latin or Greek, for the benefit of visually-handicapped students? Or is > this sort of thing usually accomplished by having volunteers read to such > students?? If the former, it seems to me that it would be a good thing, in > the Marth Stewart sense, to create some sort of informal > network/clearinghouse so departments could share such resources, no? Organizations that coordinate volunteer efforts do receive requests for course-materials translation, and as Margaret Phillips noted, individual US schools provide services in compliance with the ADA. One option for schools is to become institutional members of Recording for the Blind and Dyslexic. In a thread in May/June 1995 on learning disabilities (including or parallel with a thread on Latin for the hearing-impaired), Mary Lewis wrote > Recording for the Blind has a library of over 10,000 textbooks (grade > school through college) and will record virtually any textbook needed by > any student who is qualified for its services. Recently the organization > has embarked on an e-text project to put important reference works (which > do not lend themselves to tape format) on computer disk. I have been > trying to persuade them to put the OCD and one of the dictionaries of > Greek and Roman mythology on disk. Right now it is a matter of setting > priorities and the agreement of publishers. When I mentioned RFB two years later [[1]], they had a 75,000-title lending library (up to at least 80K now), including one or another edition of Wheelock. They've been expanding -- they're up to 33 or more studios, up from what I think was only 15 in the early 80's. ``While all readers are welcome, there is also a need for readers specializing in math, the sciences, computers, foreign languages, the fine arts and music.'' Apparently they also do translation -- they opened a studio near my home town and my father is recording some technical literature and translating it (French to English) as well. To tie this in to a previous thread: under its original name, | Recording for the Blind ... was founded in 1948 by New York City | philanthropist Anne T. Macdonald in the attic of the Yorkville | Branch of the New York Public Library. Mrs. Macdonald's idea to | record textbooks for blind students was inspired by a number of | letters received by the library from blinded veterans of World War II | who wanted to pursue a college education on the GI Bill but could not | because college texts were not readily accessible. (Quotes are from the FAQ: .) [[1]] gopher://140.142.56.13/0R563761-568505-/public/classics/classics.log9710e .