HI Becky,I want to thank you for posting this. I've contacted my congressman on the issue.
Stacey and GEB dog Chesley staceyr75@xxxxxxxxxxxxx----- Original Message ----- From: "Becky Barnes" <bbarnes@xxxxxxxxxxxxxxx>
To: <bookport@xxxxxxxxxxxxx> Sent: Monday, June 11, 2007 12:57 PMSubject: [bookport] Re: FW: Action alert: Urgent-please call toll free-NLS digital books
Actually, it has everything to do with availability of digital books and the new Bookport. Sorry if you were offended but this legislatin effects every blind/vi person who uses NLS. ________________________________ From: bookport-bounce@xxxxxxxxxxxxx [mailto:bookport-bounce@xxxxxxxxxxxxx] On Behalf Of Walt Smith Sent: Monday, June 11, 2007 11:14 AM To: bookport@xxxxxxxxxxxxx Subject: [bookport] Re: FW: Action alert: Urgent-please call toll free-NLS digital books This has absolutely nothing to do with the Book Port and I, for one, resent its being posted here. ________________________________ From: bookport-bounce@xxxxxxxxxxxxx [mailto:bookport-bounce@xxxxxxxxxxxxx] On Behalf Of Becky Barnes Sent: Monday, June 11, 2007 10:36 AM To: juno-l@xxxxxxxxxxxxxxxx Cc: Bookport List Subject: [bookport] FW: Action alert: Urgent-please call toll free-NLS digital books -----Original Message----- Sent: Saturday, June 09, 2007 4:35 PM Please pass on... Action Alert! Please Call Toll-Free and/or Make Contact Today! Full $76.4 Million Needed to Digitize the Talking Book Service Dear ACBNY Advocate, This Action Alert was written by Lisa Helen Hoffman and Pratik Patel who urge you to please take action! The Library of Congress asked Congress to appropriate about $76.4 million, over the next four years, to digitize the NLS Talking Book Service. This request was addressed by the House Subcommittee on the Legislative Branch, and their recommendation to the full Committee on Appropriations will include $7.5 million to the Library of Congress for the implementation of the digital talking book program by NLS. This budget item will be brought before the Appropriations Committee on Tuesday, June 12. Your calls and letters are of the utmost importance. The last item on this message is an alphabetical list of all the Appropriations Committee members along with their contact information. Please contact the Washington, DC office of your Congresswoman or Congressman, along with the representatives from New York who are on the full APPROPRIATIONS Committee, and give her/him the following message: 1. The Library of Congress needs the full $76.4 million in order to complete the project of digitizing the Talking Book Service over the next four years. $7.5 million is simply not enough. NLS needs $19.1 million this year, and for the following 3 years, to finish this job. 2. Since the tape players that are currently used are no longer being manufactured, and cassette tapes are obsolete, the Talking Book Service must be digitized. People who are blind or visually impaired can not use off the shelf technology because the presence of touch screens and the absence of Braille and/or tactile labels make commercially available players impossible for people who are blind or visually impaired to operate. 3. Let her/him know how important this service is to you and that you rely on the Talking Book service for your reading material. For more background information on this issue, this message includes a message and a letter from Melanie Brunson, Executive Director of ACB National, along with the May 30, 2007 Washington Post article. To reach your Congresswoman or Congressman toll-free, call the Capitol switchboard at 1-888-281-0661 or You can find your representatives by zip code at http://www.vote-smart.org Call or contact the representatives immediately! Together we can make a difference! Lisa Helen Hoffman Pratik Patel Background Information Message to the Membership of ACB from Melanie Brunson, Executive Director of ACB National Hello All, Just wanted to give you a quick progress report. The House Subcommittee on the Legislative Branch marked up its funding bill today. Their recommendation to the full Committee on Appropriations will include $7.5 million to the Library of Congress for the implementation of the digital talking book program by NLS. This is less than half of the amount requested by NLS. The subcommittee chair, Debbie Wasserman Schultz, (d-fl) stated that the bill will also include language giving the Librarian discretion to move some funds from other sources if it is deemed appropriate to fund this program. However, it is not clear whether this discretion would also allow the Librarian to take funds from NLS to fund something else. As of this writing, the actual legislative language is not available, but this is a question we will have to look into. The full Appropriations Committee will probably consider this bill within a week or so. That means we have some work to do. Members of Congress, especially House members on the Appropriations Committee, need to know how important the talking book program is to the blind community. Please contact your representative if you have not already done so. The transition to digital talking books is not just a nice thing to do to provide more bells and whistles that appeal to techies. It is a necessity because the cassette players currently in use are no longer being manufactured. The entire industry is phasing out the cassette. It is only a matter of time before something has to be done anyway that will enable NLS to adapt to industry trends. Please help us support the continued availability of talking books for the blind. If you have any questions, please contact me either by email, or by calling the ACB national office. Melanie Brunson ****************** Letter to: Rep. Debbie Wasserman Schultz, Chair, House Subcommittee on the Legislative Branch from Melanie Brunson, Executive Director of ACB National June 5, 2007 Rep. Debbie Wasserman Schultz, Chair, House Subcommittee on the Legislative Branch 118 Cannon House Office Building Washington, DC 20515 Via Fax (202) 225-8456 Dear Rep. Wasserman Schultz, I am writing on behalf of the American Council of the Blind to urge you to grant the appropriation requested by the National Library Service for the Blind and Physically Handicapped (NLS) to fund their transition to digital talking book production. Our organization represents tens of thousands of blind and visually impaired individuals from every state in the union. Our members rely on reading material provided by NLS for a wide variety of reasons, including professional development, education, information to aid in their civic participation, as well as entertainment. It is vital to the interests of the blind community throughout this country that this program be preserved. To accomplish this, it is necessary that the technology used to produce and distribute talking books be brought into the 21st century. We have followed the deliberations of NLS over the course of the past several years during which the plan to transition to digital talking books was developed. In fact, members of our organization participated directly in the creation and implementation of these plans as future consumers of the digital talking book program. We are impressed and pleased by the level of consumer involvement used by NLS in developing the proposed digital system. We are confident that the technology that has been chosen for future distribution of talking books, and the proposed implementation schedule, will effectively meet the needs of their blind and visually impaired patrons for decades to come. We are aware that a recent report issued by the Government Accountability Office has generated some controversy regarding the proposed solution NLS has adopted for digital talking books. We wish to suggest that this report appears to be significantly flawed both in its presentation of fact and its conclusions. We believe that Congress has not been well served by this analysis and hope you will disregard it. The technology is recognized by industry experts as solid and, unlike similar "off-the-shelf" digital technology, is readily usable by blind and visually impaired people of all ages and abilities. Such usability by a diverse population with widely varying capabilities is absolutely essential to the integrity of this program. We have been awaiting this transition for some time. Please do not make us wait any longer. Please authorize the appropriation requested by the National Library Service for the digital talking book program. If you require any additional information about this issue, please do not hesitate to contact me. Sincerely, Melanie Brunson, Executive Director Cc: Frank Kurt Cylke, National Library Service for the Blind and Physically Handicapped ************************* Washington Post Article Congress should fund the digitization of a vital audio library for the blind. Congress should fund the digitization of a vital audio library for the blind. Wednesday, May 30, 2007 A HALF-MILLION Americans stand in danger of losing their public library. They are the nation's blind, and their library is Talking Books, through which the National Library Service for the Blind and Physically Handicapped of the Library of Congress (NLS) provides 500,000 Americans with free audio recordings of about as many books. Unlike the "books on tape" that are sold at retail bookstores, these recordings are unabridged, extensive and diverse -- and are designed for people who have no other way of reading print. Unfortunately, today's Talking Books technology is ready to meet its maker. The program currently uses half-speed audiotapes that patrons listen to on special devices. These tape players, like the Talking Books record players that preceded them, are obsolete, and are no longer even being manufactured. To bring the program into the 21st century, the NLS hopes to digitize its entire library and create new players. It has spent 17 years researching, building and testing new products, and it is ready to manufacture a fully accessible flash-drive player. The Library of Congress has asked Congress to appropriate about $76.4 million to produce the players and digitize thousands more books. A forthcoming Government Accountability Office report, however, may derail the NLS's plans. In a draft version of the report completed several weeks ago, the GAO faulted the NLS for not considering existing commercial products such as CD players and iPods instead of creating a new device. This sounds like a reasonable concern, given tales of exorbitant government spending on $792 doormats and $400 hammers. But creating special, noncommercial players is crucial to the continued existence of Talking Books. Commercially available products, which often use visual screens and are not labeled in Braille, are not accessible to the visually impaired. More important, to comply with U.S. copyright law, Talking Books can record and distribute only audio books that cannot be played by commercial devices. Should the GAO keep this misguided criticism in its final report, lawmakers should not be swayed by it. Instead, Congress should fully fund Talking Books' digital upgrade, a project that will grant many disabled Americans the same literary access afforded to the sighted. SOURCE: Washington Post **Thanks to our friends at Mitsubishi Electric America Foundation for sending us this article** ~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~ ************************* House Committee on Appropriations Full Committee - June 7, 2007 FL D, Schultz, Rep Debbie Wasserman, 202-225-7931 (alphabetical by state) AL D, Cramer, Rep Robert E. Bud, Jr., 202-225-4801 AL R, Aderholt, Rep Robert B., 202-225-4876 AR D, Berry, Rep Marion, 202-225-4076 AZ D, Pastor, Rep Ed, 202-225-4065 CA D, Farr, Rep Sam, 202-225-2861 CA D, Honda, Rep Mike, 202-225-2631 CA D, Lee, Rep Barbara, 202-225-2661 CA D, Roybal-Allard, Rep Lucille, 202-225-1766 CA D, Schiff, Rep Adam, 202-225-4176 CA R, Calvert, Rep Ken, 202-225-1986 CA R, Lewis, Rep Jerry, 202-225-5861 CT D, DeLauro, Rep Rosa L., 202-225-3661 FL D, Boyd, Rep F. Allen, 202-225-5235 FL R, Crenshaw, Rep Ander, 202-225-2501 FL R, Weldon, Rep Dave, 202-225-3671 FL R, Young, Rep C. W. Bill, 202-225-5961 GA D, Bishop, Rep Sanford D., Jr., 202-225-3631 GA R, Kingston, Rep Jack, 202-225-5831 IA R, Latham, Rep Tom, 202-225-5476 ID R, Simpson, Rep Mike, 202-225-5531 IL D, Jackson, Rep Jesse L., Jr., 202-225-0773 IL R, Kirk, Rep Mark Steven, 202-225-4835 IL R, LaHood, Rep Ray, 202-225-6201 IN D, Visclosky, Rep Peter J., 202-225-2461 KS R, Tiahrt, Rep Todd, 202-225-6216 KY D, Chandler, Rep Ben, 202-225-4706 KY R, Rogers, Rep Hal, 202-225-4601 LA R, Alexander, Rep Rodney, 202-225-8490 MA D, Olver, Rep John W., 202-225-5335 MD D, Ruppersberger, Rep C. A. Dutch, 202-225-3061 MI D, Kilpatrick, Rep Carolyn Cheeks, 202-225-2261 MI R, Knollenberg, Rep Joe, 202-225-5802 MN D, McCollum, Rep Betty, 202-225-6631 MO R, Emerson, Rep Jo Ann, 202-225-4404 MS R, Wicker, Rep Roger F., 202-225-4306 MT R, Rehberg, Rep Dennis, 202-225-3211 NC D, Price, Rep David E., 202-225-1784 NJ D, Rothman, Rep Steve, 202-225-5061 NJ R, Frelinghuysen, Rep Rodney P., 202-225-5034 NM D, Udall, Rep Tom, 202-225-6190 NY D, Hinchey, Rep Maurice D., 202-225-6335 NY D, Israel, Rep Steve, 202-225-3335 NY D, Lowey, Rep Nita M., 202-225-6506 NY D, Serrano, Rep Jose E., 202-225-4361 NY R, Walsh, Rep James T., 202-225-3701 OH D, Kaptur, Rep Marcy, 202-225-4146 OH D, Ryan, Rep Tim, 202-225-5261 OH R, Hobson, Rep David L., 202-225-4324 OH R, Regula, Rep Ralph, 202-225-3876 PA D, Fattah, Rep Chaka, 202-225-4001 PA D, Murtha, Rep John P., 202-225-2065 PA R, Peter son, Rep John E., 202-225-5121 RI D, Kennedy, Rep Patrick J., 202-225-4911 TN R, Wamp, Rep Zach, 202-225-3271 TX D, Edwards, Rep Chet, 202-225-6105 TX D, Rodriguez, Rep Ciro D., 202-225-4511 TX R, Carter, Rep John R., 202-225-3864 TX R, Culberson, Rep John, 202-225-2571 TX R, Granger, Rep Kay, 202-225-5071 VA D, Moran, Rep Jim, 202-225-4376 VA R, Goode, Rep Virgil H., Jr., 202-225-4711 VA R, Wolf, Rep Frank R., 202-225-5136 WA D, Dicks, Rep Norm, 202-225-5916 WI D, Obey, Rep David R., Chair, 202-225-3365 WV D, Mollohan, Rep Alan B., 202-225-4172 -------------- next part -------------- An HTML attachment was scrubbed... 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