Recording for the Blind & Dyslexic
Encyclopedia
Learning Ally
Learning Ally, which was previously named Recording for the Blind & Dyslexic or RFB&D, is a non-profitNon-profit organization
Nonprofit organization is neither a legal nor technical definition but generally refers to an organization that uses surplus revenues to achieve its goals, rather than distributing them as profit or dividends...
volunteer organization operating nationwide in the United States
United States
The United States of America is a federal constitutional republic comprising fifty states and a federal district...
. It produces and maintains a library of educational accessible audiobooks for people who cannot effectively read standard print because of visual impairment
Visual impairment
Visual impairment is vision loss to such a degree as to qualify as an additional support need through a significant limitation of visual capability resulting from either disease, trauma, or congenital or degenerative conditions that cannot be corrected by conventional means, such as refractive...
, dyslexia
Dyslexia
Dyslexia is a very broad term defining a learning disability that impairs a person's fluency or comprehension accuracy in being able to read, and which can manifest itself as a difficulty with phonological awareness, phonological decoding, orthographic coding, auditory short-term memory, or rapid...
or other disability
Disability
A disability may be physical, cognitive, mental, sensory, emotional, developmental or some combination of these.Many people would rather be referred to as a person with a disability instead of handicapped...
.
Services
A volunteer force of approximately 7,000 people records over 6,000 titles annually into Learning Ally's library, which in 2007 contained over 37,000 titles in a broad variety of specialty and academic subjects, from kindergarten through post-graduate and professional. In addition to general interest titles, Learning Ally records specific titles requested by member borrowers, provided that the title is educational in nature and supports a formal academic curriculum, and that the member can provide two copies of the book to Learning Ally, which are necessary for the recording and editing process.Borrowers must provide a certification of their disability, and may borrow titles through an individual membership, through their association with a member institution such as a school, or both. While approved borrowers had paid no charges or fees for this service in the past, as of September 1, 2011, Learning Ally will require a $99 annual membership fee. In addition, support software for mainstream mobile devices or Learning Ally's ReadHear software for Mac and PC that had been free of charge, will require a separate purchase.
Titles are digitally recorded onto CD or downloadable audio file in a specialized format which allows Learning Ally to respect copyright
Copyright
Copyright is a legal concept, enacted by most governments, giving the creator of an original work exclusive rights to it, usually for a limited time...
and allows borrowers to access the audio recordings by chapter or page number. Titles must be played back by a specially adapted CD player, available from Learning Ally. Downloadable audio textbooks can be played back using portable media players or Microsoft Windows
Microsoft Windows
Microsoft Windows is a series of operating systems produced by Microsoft.Microsoft introduced an operating environment named Windows on November 20, 1985 as an add-on to MS-DOS in response to the growing interest in graphical user interfaces . Microsoft Windows came to dominate the world's personal...
-compatible computers.
History
Learning Ally was founded in 1948 by Anne T. Macdonald, a member of the New York Public LibraryNew York Public Library
The New York Public Library is the largest public library in North America and is one of the United States' most significant research libraries...
's Women's Auxiliary, in response to an influx of inquiries from soldiers who had lost their sight in combat during World War II
World War II
World War II, or the Second World War , was a global conflict lasting from 1939 to 1945, involving most of the world's nations—including all of the great powers—eventually forming two opposing military alliances: the Allies and the Axis...
. The newly-passed GI Bill of Rights guaranteed a college education to all veterans, but texts were mostly inaccessible to the recently-blinded veterans, who did not read Braille
Braille
The Braille system is a method that is widely used by blind people to read and write, and was the first digital form of writing.Braille was devised in 1825 by Louis Braille, a blind Frenchman. Each Braille character, or cell, is made up of six dot positions, arranged in a rectangle containing two...
and had little access to live readers. Macdonald mobilized the women of the Auxiliary under the motto "Education is a right, not a privilege".
Members of the Auxiliary formed Recording for the Blind and transformed the attic of the New York Public Library into a studio, recording textbooks using then state-of-the-art six-inch vinyl SoundScriber
SoundScriber
SoundScriber Disc was a dictation format introduced in 1945 by The SoundScriber Corp. . It recorded sound by "pressing" grooves into soft vinyl discs. Competing products were the Gray Audograph and Dictaphone DictaBelt....
phonograph discs that played approximately 12 minutes of material per side. In 1952, Macdonald established recording studios in seven additional cities across the United States.
By 1970, the organization found itself serving an increasing number of people who had learning disabilities, including dyslexia. To acknowledge this growing member population, the organization’s name was changed in 1995 to Recording for the Blind & Dyslexic. In 2011 the organizations name was again changed to Learning Ally. More than 70 percent of Learning Ally's membership, including children and adults, are certified as having learning disabilities.
The SoundScriber discs were eventually replaced by four-track cassettes; since 2007, all titles have been distributed on CD in a specialized format which facilitates accessing the audio recording by chapter or by a given page number from the printed material. As of August 2008, titles have been converted into downloadable audio files.