A radio reading service or reading service for the blind is a public service of many universities, community groups and public radio stations, where a narrator reads books, newspapers and magazines aloud for the benefit of the blind and vision-impaired. It is typically broadcast on a subcarrier , with radio receivers permanently tuned to a given station in the area, or an HD Radio subchannel of the offering station. Some reading services use alternative methods for reaching their audiences, including broadcasting over SAP , streaming Internet radio, cable TV, or even terrestrial TV.
13-651: The International Association of Audio Information Services (IAAIS) serves as the primary member organization for radio reading services, and has member services or has consulted with and assisted local organizations in Canada, Costa Rica, Dominican Republic, Guatemala, Jamaica, Japan, Mexico, Panama, New Zealand, the Netherlands, the United Kingdom and the United States. The first radio reading service in
26-406: A local or regional reading service on an FM subcarrier. They are commonly affiliated with universities, libraries and other non-profit institutions. Reception of these stations require a special receiver, available at no cost to the listener, though most organizations require certification that the potential listener is unable to use normal printed material. Stations in other countries also carry such
39-617: A mixture of live readings and prerecorded readings overnight. Australia 's Radio Print Handicapped Network has stations in all capital cities and some other areas. The first internet-based reading service was Assistive Media , founded in 1996 by David Erdody in Ann Arbor, Michigan . Most of the over 100 audio information services in the U.S. stream their broadcasts live on the internet, and some offer online archives of previously broadcast programming. Some organizations provide their listeners with internet radios preprogrammed to easily find
52-753: A service in this fashion. Some radio reading services are broadcast on standard FM stations. WRBH in New Orleans was the first full-time open channel radio reading service, although WRKC in Wilkes-Barre, Pennsylvania has been broadcasting a two-hour-a-day service, the Radio Home Visitor , since 1974. WYPL in Memphis, Tennessee , run by volunteers of the Memphis Public Library, devotes nearly its entire broadcast day to
65-656: The Hamm Recording Project was known as the Communication Center, was also providing Braille for Minnesotans, and had expanded their volunteer base considerably. It seemed an obvious location for the Radio Talking Book. With the assistance of Communication Center engineer Robert Watson, a closed-circuit radio was designed that would pick up only the signal of the new Radio Talking Book, and the station began. The initial schedule had
78-624: The Minneapolis Tribune newspaper read live on the air for two hours each morning, the Saint Paul Dispatch read for two hours each evening, and the remainder of the hours filled with programming from just over 20 magazines and a wide variety of books read serially. By the present day, that programming is two hours of the combined Minneapolis and Saint Paul papers in the morning, two hours of the New York Times in
91-693: The Minnesota Radio Talking Book Network are also made available to blind, visually impaired, and other print disabled Americans through the Minnesota Braille and Talking Book Library. The inauguration of a radio reading service inspired other locations around the country to begin similar services. By 1975, there were enough of them that they decided to create the Association of Radio Reading Services, headed by C. Stanley Potter. That organization eventually became
104-465: The Radio Talking Book, was started as a side-channel radio on KSJR-FM, itself fairly new at the time. KSJR began January 22, 1967, as the classical radio station belonging to St. John's University, and was called MER, Minnesota Educational Radio. In 1974, the station's name was changed to Minnesota Public Radio , MPR. In 1967 and 1968, conversations took place between Father Colman Barry, OSB , president of St. John's University, William Kling, manager of
117-638: The United States was the Minnesota Radio Talking Book Network , started in 1969 by C. Stanley Potter and Robert Watson. After six years of researching the concept, a Kansas philanthropist learned of the Minnesota service, and with their help in 1971 Petey Cerf founded Audio-Reader , the second reading service in the nation, in Lawrence, Kansas . In the late 1970s, Audio-Reader director Rosie Hurwitz and Stan Potter served as
130-497: The evening, 11 hours per day of programming from serialized current-copyright books, and programming from over 300 periodicals. The programming is interrupted in six smaller Minnesota cities where teams of volunteers read local newspapers on the air. The programming is carried on satellite where it is picked up by many other radio reading services across the hemisphere, and it is streamed on the Internet. Copies of all books recorded by
143-698: The first two presidents of the Association of Radio Reading Services, which came to be known as the National Association of Radio Reading Services, and, finally, IAAIS. The first radio reading service in Canada was founded by Richard Moses and Gordon Norman in Oakville, Ontario , in the basement of the Woodside Branch of the Oakville Public Library in the mid-1970s. In the United States, many public radio stations carry
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#1732793417395156-606: The internet stream. Minnesota Radio Talking Book Network The Minnesota Radio Talking Book Network was the world's first radio reading service for the blind; the first on-air date was January 2, 1969. The purpose of a radio reading service is to make current print material available, through the medium of a radio, to those who cannot read it because of a physical condition such as blindness, visual disability, dyslexia, or strokes. In 1969, there were no other options available to blind and visually impaired people. The Minnesota Radio Talking Book Network, at that time called
169-710: The station, and C. Stanley Potter, Director of the State Services for the Blind from 1948 to 1985. It was decided to place the Radio Talking Book as part of the Hamm Recording Project, which was begun by the Hamm Foundation in 1953 as a public-private partnership in association with Minnesota State Services for the Blind. In 1953, the purpose of the Hamm Recording Project was to make textbooks, Minnesota magazines and Minnesota authors available in an audio format for people who were blind and visually impaired. By 1969,
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