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For many years inventors had struggled with this problem. Bell and Tainter patented a machine for playing such a record in 1886. The method of recording was known as constant linear velocity recording. Though Bell and Tainter patented such an instrument they never produced a machine which would do the job satisfactorily under any but laboratory conditions. Several other inventors attempted to accomplish the same end without success. It was decided by the engineer of the American Foundation for the Blind that it would be unwise for its laboratory with its limited funds to attempt to solve the problem which had caused so much expense and failure to other inventors. Constant linear velocity therefore was abandoned.

An inventor living in Los Angeles persuaded J. Robert Atkinson, Managing Director of the Braille Institute of America that he could develop a satisfactory, inexpensive and thoroughly practical constant linear velocity machine. It was argued that if this method could be applied satisfactorily, it would reduce the cost of manufacturing Talking Books by something like fifty per cent. In view of this Atkinson felt that before recommending the establishment of Talking Book libraries the Foundation should more thoroughly investigate this recording method. He protested vigorously against the Foundation's decision to disregard the constant linear velocity method and had an experimental machine built which he called the Readaphone.

In order to settle the matter once and for all the Foundation invited the two gentlemen from California to come to New York, at its expense, and demonstrate the Readaphone before a jury of outstanding engineers appointed by the Radio Corporation of America, Bell Laboratories and two or three smaller concerns. This jury witnessed the demonstration, examined the machine carefully and reported that the Readaphone was no better than any of the other machines which had been offered to manufacturers many years before and pronounced failures. However, blind people had been thoroughly aroused by Atkinson's publicity on the subject. Dr. H. H. B. Meyer, Director of Project, Books for the Blind of the Library of Congress, therefore, finally made the following announcement in the Outlook for the Blind for April 1935:

"Judging from the letters received here, there seems to be a good deal of apprehension on the part of blind readers all over the country that we are to be precipitated into a fight between rival reproducing machines for the use of the blind, the Readaphone and the Talking Book, a fight similar to the struggle over embossed types of several decades ago.

"Let me assure the blind readers through the medium of the Outlook for the Blind that the Library of Congress will not take part in any struggle, which can only work to the disadvantage of the blind.

"We shall not furnish the distributing libraries with any records which cannot be reproduced on the Talking Book machine of which so many hundreds have been put out by the American Foundation for the Blind. Under existing circumstances to do so would be worse than merely foolish. The demand for records for the Talking Book is so great that our appropriation is not large enough to meet it.

"If at any time a machine is put on the market which is universally admitted to be so superior to any in use as to justify substituting it for all others in use, we shall again join in the movement for something better for the blind."

It is interesting to note that the Audograph, an office machine for dictating purposes has more recently been developed utilizing the constant linear velocity principle. However, this machine is quite expensive and it is doubtful if an inexpensive machine giving high quality reproduction could even yet be built.

The Talking Book for the blind was based on the principle of the long-playing phonograph record on which Frank L. Dyer, the inventor, had obtained a series of patents. At the time when the American Foundation for the Blind recommended the establishment of Talking Book libraries, law suits were pending in which Mr. Dyer was trying to force the Radio Corporation of America and other record manufacturing concerns to pay him a royalty on radio transcriptions recorded at the rate of 33 1/3 rpm. Mr.Dyer's patent was clear enough on the subject, but the commercial concerns claimed that this was not a patentable principle, and later he lost his case.

Meanwhile, however, the American Foundation for the Blind had no desire to be involved in this litigation which might cause long delay and expense. The author approached Mr. Dyer on the subject, and he agreed to give the Foundation -- and later, the American Printing House for the Blind -- free right to use his patent in making records for the exclusive use of the blind. Mr. Dyer imposed only one condition, viz., that every Talking Book record that used his patented method should bear the legend "Isabelle Archer Dyer Memorial Record" in honor of his deceased wife. In spite of court action invalidating the Dyer patent the American Foundation for the Blind continued to place this inscription on the record labels throughout the life of the patent.