By Christopher Lee
Washington Post Staff Writer
Wednesday, March 5, 2008; Page A19
Judith M. Dixon, a clinical psychologist by training and a sophisticated
techie by avocation, is helping to lead the Library of Congress into the
digital age.
Dixon, 55, who gave up university teaching 27 years ago to join the
library's National Library Service for the Blind and Physically
Handicapped, is a key player on a team that has been working for the
better part of a decade to create a new generation of audiobooks for the
library's more than 700,000 registered blind and disabled users.
The goal is to make the digital format the backbone of the library's
"talking book" program by transferring onto special digital flash drives
the 60,000 titles that the library has on audiocassettes and giving
patrons new machines on which to play them.
"The library system is here because free public library service is a
basic tenet of our society," said Dixon, who is blind and navigates with
the aid of a guide dog. "This program is providing access to people who
would otherwise not have it."
Under the program, blind and disabled users may obtain audiobooks
through the mail from any of the service's more than 130 regional
libraries throughout the country. There is no charge for the books or
the players, but to keep the machines, users must check out at least one
book a year. The library plans to roll out the new machines and digital
books by the end of the year.
One of the new digital cartridges can hold 46 hours of audio. In
contrast, a single cassette tape holds six hours -- and then only when
recorded at half-speed and on four tracks. Since the typical book is 15
hours long, the new format means all but the longest books can be
contained on a single cartridge, Dixon said.
The transformation also is driven by necessity. The cassette tape
belongs to a generation of technology whose time has passed. As the
library-issued cassette players on which blind users play tapes fall
into disrepair, finding spare parts grows harder and harder.
The Library of Congress and its users have been through technological
revolutions before. The library began offering audiobooks on long-play
records in 1934. It added books on cassettes in the late 1960s, but the
vinyl era lasted well into the 1980s.
"This transition is probably going to have to happen a lot faster
because cassettes just aren't going to be available much longer," said
Dixon, who is a consumer relations officer for the library.
The new players resemble the flat, dictionary-size cassette machines of
old, with large buttons and a single built-in speaker. The digital
cartridge is about the same size as a cassette tape, but it connects to
the player via a USB port rather than fitting over two rotating pegs.
Dixon and advocates for the blind say that relying on commercially
available books on compact disc or in MP3 format is not an option. Many
blind users have difficulty operating the tiny buttons of MP3 players,
and the inventory of available books is usually limited to commercially
popular titles.
Congress has approved $12.5 million annually for four years to help the
program go digital, less than the $19.1 million that the library had
sought. That means it will be able to make 3.5 million copies of
audiobooks over four years instead of 4.8 million, officials said. The
program's advocates plan to press their case for more money today at a
House Appropriations subcommittee hearing on the library's budget.
"The old players will start to break down and the new players will not
be available yet, and a lot of patrons are going to experience a halt in
service," said Chris Danielsen, a spokesman for the National Federation
of the Blind. "The talking-book program is the primary source of reading
material for most blind people. Imagine if someone told you, 'You know
what, you just don't get to read anything for a while.' "
Ardis Bazyn
Available for inspirational speaking, writing, and coaching:
www.bazyncommunications.com
