Library Collections: Document: Full Text

About the same time, a new braille printing shop on the Pacific Coast, known as the Universal Braille Press, managed by a blind man by the name of J. Robert Atkinson, was working on the problem of interpointing. He also developed a machine which would emboss on metal plates with sufficient precision to do good interpoint. However, his machine lacked some of the merits of the American Foundation for the Blind machine in that it was 50 per cent more expensive and somewhat less sturdy.

However, Atkinson cooperated with the American Foundation for the Blind in printing some books in interpointing in order to demonstrate that interpointed books could be made without increasing the line space or the space between the dots, and still have letters that were equal to those printed on one side of the page.

The arrangement was that Universal Braille Press would manufacture the books regardless of cost and the American Foundation for the Blind would meet the expense. The belief was that after thoroughly acceptable books had been embossed, much of the criticism of interpointed books would be eliminated and attention could then be given to perfecting the process sufficiently to take advantage of the savings made possible by this method of printing. Though the first books were quite expensive, the final result, after a year or two, was that through interpointing the bulk of braille books had been reduced by upwards of forty per cent and the cost by almost as much.

Meanwhile, the American Printing House for the Blind had been experimenting with various methods of doing interpointing with machinery developed in its own establishment. With a change in management of that institution it eventually adopted the machinery developed by the American Foundation for the Blind. Both the machines and the methods have been improved as the years passed and today no one would think of going back to one-side printing.

The development work carried on by the American Foundation for the Blind in connection with perfecting interpointing cost about $75,000. The economy effected by this method has, since 1935, saved the taxpayers of this country more than $75,000 annually, not to mention the reduced cost per volume of library space for the rapidly increasing number of braille books.

Furthermore, elaborate presses for printing embossed type have been developed so that today several hundred copies an hour may be produced on large cylinder presses. The metal plates embossed on the stereotypemaker are capable of pressing thousands of copies. The plates may be filed away in much less room than is required for ordinary type or even stereotyped plates for inkprinting.

LIBRARIES FOR THE BLIND

The present library service for the blind in the United States stems from legislative action taken by the Federal Government in 1931. The history of the conditions and events that led up to this legislation and of successive developments is here told in detail by one who lived and labored through it all. Dr. Irwin's name will always be indelibly associated with the story of books and reading for the blind.

The libraries for the blind have considerably expanded their services over the last few years. A change of significance occurred in 1952, one year after Dr. Irwin's death, when an amendment to the Pratt-Smoot law made these services available also to blind children over the age of five years.

ABOUT the turn of the century several local libraries in the United States began responding to demands from blind people for library service by making modest beginnings at establishing libraries for the blind. They bought collections of books in raised type and gave them a certain amount of local publicity. In their eagerness for something to read, local blind people borrowed, and read with avidity, the few volumes available. Unfortunately, the supply of books in raised type which the libraries could purchase was extremely restricted. Aside from a few volumes of religious literature, about the only books which could be purchased were those embossed for school use.

Through the small annual allowance to the American Printing House for the Blind from the Federal Government, the schools had gradually built up a small list of classics for the high school pupils in the residential schools for the blind. This was augmented by a substantial number of titles published in American braille by the Pennsylvania Institution for the Instruction of the Blind and by the Howe Memorial Press.

About seventy-five libraries had started collections, the most active of which were the New York Public Library, the Chicago Public Library, the Free Library of Philadelphia, the Library of Congress, the New York State Library at Albany, the Cleveland Public Library, the California State Library, and two special libraries -- the one maintained by the Cincinnati Library Society for the Blind, and the library of Perkins Institution for the Blind.

Soon the blind people in these communities had read all the embossed books in their local libraries. Blind people in places remote from the libraries having departments for the blind found it impossible to call for embossed books personally, and even though the library might be willing to mail books to them, the sightless prospective borrowers could not afford to pay the necessary postage.