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Braille Readers Of Harry Potter Beef Up Their Biceps

The 13-volume Braille version of the latest Harry Potter book weighs in at 17-pounds and had the National Braille Press working hell-for-leather to ship it on time. DCLnews reports.

MOST DAYS at the National Braille Press (NBP) in Boston, the Heidelberg Cylinder Presses pump out 8,000 pages an hour - while workers collate magazines, manuals, and popular children's books by hand.

But over the last few weeks it has been a different story.

The 49 staff have been working hell for leather to produce 500 Braille versions of J.K. Rowling's "Harry Potter and the Order of the Phoenix," which came out on June 21. The first seven volumes of the 13-volume Braille edition are being shipped now, the rest by the end of the month.

Did You Know? DCLab.com is being made accessible so it can be read by people with visual disabilities. In fact, this issue of DCLnews is the first one to be written using accessible HTML code. Improvements will be made over coming months, so feedback from anyone who is sight impaired would be much appreciated.

How do the two books compare?

Apart from being a far smaller print run, the Braille edition will demand blind fans of Harry Potter beef up their biceps - weighing in at 17-pounds, it's a heavyweight compared to Scholastic's trade edition. "It would be nice if J.K. [Rowling] were a little less verbose in the next one," joked Diane Croft, VP of marketing and publishing at NBP.

On a more serious note she added that Scholastic were a big help in enabling the Press to fire out Braille editions so close to the trade one: "Magically at the stroke of midnight on June 21 the files appeared here. Scholastic's been great. The last book was 10 volumes, so we were hoping this would be a little shorter. But the kids don't seem to mind. Kids who had been reluctant Braille readers are reading Harry Potter."

XML and accessibility

One of the reasons why the Braille Harry Potter came out hot on the tail of the regular version is that books are generally published electronically these days, frequently in the computer mark-up language XML.

"This makes it easier to make books accessible sooner," explains Mikhail Vaysbukh of Data Conversion Laboratory and a noted speaker on accessibility issues. "Braille, in effect, becomes just another publishing medium. With the power of XML, publishers can easily deploy content to different formats, including making it ready for Braille. In other words, the format can be varied to fit the audience."

Braille literacy, however, has declined since the 1970s. But NBP president William Raeder believes it is on the rise again - thanks in part to books such as Harry Potter.

"When compelling literature comes out, it gets children back on the bandwagon - and that's as true of blind children. [These books are] full of magic and intrigue."

Not easy

But creating Braille books is no easy task. The text first has to be transcribed into the correct notation. The pages are then punched, proofed, and pressed through the old Heidelberg Cylinders. Staff and volunteers at the NBP then collate, fold, and staple the books by hand (machines would smash the Braille). At that point, the materials are ready to ship.

The Braille Harry Potter books are priced the same as the non-Braille versions - $29.95. "The cost doesn't even cover the paper," said NBP's Diane Croft. "But we're a non-profit and it's our job to raise the difference. No-one should be penalized for having to read Braille."

Some commentators believe that Braille could soon be made obsolete by sophisticated computer software called Reading Machines. With a computer and flatbed scanner, for example, a person who is visually impaired can scan books, magazines, and newspapers, and have their computer read the material to them out loud. Computers can also be set up to display material in extremely large type.

Getting braille to preschoolers

But it is more likely that Braille and reading technology will exist side-by-side. Indeed, influential people are helping to promote Braille. NBP recently launched a program called Read Books: Because Braille Matters, funded in part by the Reader's Digest and the Mellon Foundation. The goal of the program, which is chaired by First Lady Laura Bush and Arthur creator Marc Brown, is to get Braille books into the homes of blind preschoolers.

DCLnews Editorial
7.30.2003