Talking Books initiative

The RNIB’s (Royal National Institute of Blind People) Talking Books service has received funding of £3,000 from Western Power Distribution (WPD) for the translation of children’s books to audio format.

Almost 2 million people are living with sight loss in the UK. The charity has just over 19,000 high quality books available from its subscription service and can deliver them direct to the door of people with slight loss.

The Talking Books service costs the RNIB £4 million a year to run and is the UK’s largest collection of unabridged audio books on Daisy CD. (Daisy stands for Digital Accessible Information Service.)

Daisy is a digital reading format that can combine audio, text and graphical information in one production, making it accessible to a wide range of people with print disabilities.

RNIB’s Bristol based Team Leader, Bernadette Dohert, explains: “Listening to a Talking Book is one of the things that people can enjoy without having to rely on anyone else.

“That feeling of independence is so important. Sight loss can be very isolating, and being able to discover a new way of reading can really help change people’s daily lives.

“We are grateful to WPD for this donation which will enable us to add more books to our extensive library.