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What is the future of the Talking Book for the blind? Is the disc the best form to be employed? From the beginning, film recording was considered by Mr. Kleber and other interested engineers. As a matter of fact, the possibility of film eventually replacing the disk has held back to some extent the all-out development of Talking Book libraries in Great Britain. However, as yet the technical problems connected with film Talking Books have not been solved. Some of these problems are; first, the expense of multiplying books from master recordings; second, the expense of reproducers, which is to date much higher than that of disc reproducers; third, the difficulty of manipulating film reproducers.

There is in almost every home of a blind person at least someone who has operated a phonograph. Most blind people have themselves done so at some time or other. This makes it very easy for a blind person to learn to operate a Talking Book disc machine. It would be somewhat more difficult to teach him to operate a film reproducer.

Furthermore, films have a way of getting broken, which would introduce repair problems in already overburdened libraries for the blind.

In the early experimental days wire recording as a method of making Talking Books for the blind was also investigated but soon discarded by the American Foundation for the Blind laboratory as impracticable. The reproducers cost too much money and it was believed that wire would cause too many complications both for readers and librarians. It is too difficult to refer back to any particular spot of the wire recording and the permanence of such recording is questionable because of the tendency to demagnetize and because of the increase of background noise as time goes on.

In later years recording on tape has been brought to the foreground. This type of recording at first glimpse offered real advantages over wire recording, in being easier to handle and less subject to breakage, and in providing better fidelity or tone quality. In addition, it is possible to record several bands on a single reel, and by employing an even number of bands the recording would end at the start of the reel, eliminating the delay of re-winding.

Much experimentation has been carried on with tape recording in this country and abroad. So far, the disc is still considered superior. It might be mentioned, however, that Talking Books are now first recorded on tape and later re-recorded on discs for the use of the blind.

Most Talking Book records produced in the United States are made by the American Foundation for the Blind and the American Printing House for the Blind in Louisville, Kentucky. The Printing House has been somewhat handicapped by competition from the American Foundation for the Blind in the Talking Book field because of the fact that New York City affords a much wider selection of part-time reading talent than does Louisville. On the other hand Louisville has long been a low cost city so that technicians and other employees can be hired in Louisville much more cheaply than in New York. The Library of Congress deliberately has divided its orders between the Printing House and the Foundation in order to keep the two organizations competing with one another to reduce prices and increase quality.

There is an unfortunate lack of cooperation between British and American Talking Book libraries. The British experimented with the development of Talking Book records even before such experiments were carried on in this country. Lieutenant-Colonel Sir Ian Fraser, Chairman of St. Dunstan's for Men and Women Blinded in War Service, in London, is much interested in all kinds of electronic equipment. He experimented with the recording of literature on Talking Book records many years ago, before the days of the magnetic "pick-up." He abandoned the idea because of the difficulty of getting sufficient subject matter on a single record.

At one time, in discussing the honor of priority in this field, he remarked to the author that we might fairly divide the credit because, as he claimed, Britain had made the first Talking Book record but America had made the first Talking Book book.

In the effort to extend the playing time of the records the British authorities did not have the compunction that the American engineers had about breaking commercial standards. They finally adopted a record revolving at the rate of twenty-four rpm and recorded at a pitch of 200 grooves per inch. These records, though they did not, at least in the beginning, have the quality of the American records, did have the merit of playing some twenty-five minutes per side of the disc, as compared with fifteen or sixteen minutes on the same size of American discs. In America Talking Book machines were produced which would play not only American records but also the 24 rpm British records, but they required some careful adjustment to shift from 33 1/3 to 24 rpm which seems to have been too difficult for the average home reader. Besides, there was some objection to the British accent used on these records, and they never became very popular in the United States. The British machines are more easily adjusted to play 24 or 33 1/3 rpm records at will. The British, who have been conditioned to the American accent through the cinema and otherwise, seemed to have little objection to American Talking Books, so that practically all records made in America are available to the British readers. Effort should be continued to bring the United States and Great Britain together on this subject so that there is not the wasteful duplication of records which is now going on between the two countries.