Voice of the Nation's Blind

The University of Notre Dame will use a 2009 Louis Braille Bicentennial Silver Dollar in the coin toss at its football game on Saturday, November 7. The renowned Notre Dame Fighting Irish, who have been awarded more national championships than any other Football Bowl Subdivision school, will play Navy. For more information, please read the official press release.

NFB-NEWSLINE^® is now available to all print-disabled Arkansas residents. NFB-NEWSLINE^® is a free service that allows those who cannot read conventional newsprint due to a physical disability to listen to the newspaper over the telephone, on the web, or by download to a digital talking-book player. Through the service, blind Arkansans can now independently access over three hundred newspapers and magazines and decide how, when, and where they wish to read their favorite publications.  For more information on the free service, please visit the NFB-NEWSLINE^® home page.

Applications are now being accepted for the 2010 National Federation of the Blind Scholarship Program. Thirty scholarships totaling $100,000 will be awarded to blind students from the United States and Puerto Rico. The scholarships are available to blind students who will be enrolled in college or a graduate program beginning in the fall of 2010, including incoming freshmen. Scholarships range in value from $3,000 to $12,000.  For application and eligibility information, please visit www.nfb.org/scholarships.

NFB president, Dr. Marc Maurer, will be presented the Rev. John J. Cavanaugh, C.S.C., Award from the University of Notre Dame Alumni Association in a ceremony on November 5.  Maurer, a 1974 graduate from the University of Notre Dame, will be honored for outstanding contributions in the field of public service.  For more information on this prestigious honor, please read the official press release.

The National Federation of the Blind and Carlos Mora, a blind resident of Baltimore, Maryland, filed an administrative complaint today with the United States Department of Education.  The complaint asserts that one of the United States Department of Education’s Web sites, U.S.A Learns, violates Section 508 of the Rehabilitation Act because it is inaccessible to blind people who use text-to-speech screen access technology or Braille displays to access information on the Internet.  Because of the inaccessibility of the U.S.A Learns Web site, blind people cannot access or navigate through the content of the English vocabulary, spelling, and pronunciation lessons that are offered through the site. 

 

Louisiana Tech University will use a 2009 Louis Braille Bicentennial Silver Dollar in the coin toss at its football game on November 6.  The popular Louisiana Tech Bulldogs, a NCAA division I football team, will play the Boise State Broncos. For more information, please read the official press release.

Today the Albany Times Union published an Op-Ed by National Federation of the Blind of New York President Carl Jacobsen on the proposed settlement between Google and authors and publishers regarding the Google Books project. The settlement will make millions of titles available to the blind and other Americans with print disabilities, providing more access to the printed word than the blind have had in all of human history. You can read the full Op-Ed here!

Today is White Cane Safety day, the annual celebration begun in 1964 to recognize the independence of blind Americans as represented by the white cane.  As required by the joint Congressional resolution establishing White Cane Safety Day that was passed as a result of advocacy by the National Federation of the Blind, President Barack Obama has issued a proclamation in recognition of this important celebration. This year, because of our efforts to promote Braille literacy, President Obama’s proclamation highlights the importance of Braille to blind Americans. The proclamation reads in part:

As we encourage the development of new assistive technologies, we must also improve access to existing tools.  The Braille code has opened a doorway to literacy for countless individuals, but far too many blind children in our country are not learning to read it.  By improving Braille literacy, we will secure a brighter future for these young Americans.

You can read the entire proclamation here.  Happy White Cane Safety Day!

 

 

The NFB applauds the historic partnership between K-NFB Reading Technology, Inc., the world-renowned pioneer in reading technologies, and Baker & Taylor, Inc., the world's largest distributor of physical and digital books and entertainment products.  This five-year partnership will use K-NFB Reading Technology’s soon-to-be-released electronic book reader to deliver the highest-quality digital book content to tens of millions of readers worldwide and harness Baker & Taylor’s market leadership and relationships with 44,000 publishers and major book retailers in more than 120 countries.  For more information, please read the official press release.

The NFB announced today that NFB-NEWSLINE^®, the largest electronic newspaper service in the world for blind and print-disabled Americans, now gives subscribers independent access to over three hundred newspapers and magazines.  This free service allows those who cannot read conventional newsprint due to a physical disability to listen to the newspaper over the telephone, on the web, or by download to a digital talking-book player.  With the addition of national newsmagazines like Time and interest-specific magazines like Science News to its roster of national and local publications, NFB-NEWSLINE^® continues to cater to the increasingly divergent interests of its subscribers.  To learn more, visit the NFB-NEWSLINE^® Web site!