Upstate Update - Winter 2007

Listen Now: MP3 This issue of Upstate Update is available in MP3 audio format. The audio file is 10MB in size, and about ten-and-a-half minutes in length.

MP3 files will play in many types of audio players, including Windows Media Player, RealPlayer, QuickTime, and iTunes.

First Locally Produced Book

Carl Carmer’s The Tavern Lamps Are Burning: Literary Journeys Through Six Regions and Four Centuries of New York State (D. McKay, 1964) will be available on cassette in summer 2007. Watch for further announcements.

Carmer (1893-1976) was born in Cortland NY, and his book is a rich collection of amusing and beguiling upstate New York history and folklore arranged by regions, and by centuries. The book offers 98 favorite British and American authors, including Washington Irving, James Fenimore Cooper, Edith Wharton, and Edna St. Vincent Millay, and 150 selections of their works celebrating the rich culture and heritage of our state.

We hope you will enjoy Kipling on Buffalo grain elevators, Herman Melville on the Erie Canal, and Henry James on Saratoga. There are 19th century stories of the St. Lawrence River region, and many other selections in this multi-faceted compendium. The author wrote: "I have long held that York State (as old-timers still call it) is a country, that its people have specific characteristics that make it distinctive."

The American Foundation for the Blind is recording this book for us. It is the first of several local interest books that we plan to make available to you in recorded format. Future titles will also reflect the history, natural history, literature, exploration, and folklore of our state.

What Do You Mean By "Send?"

You’ve probably done it. You’ve probably mailed or e-mailed us a list of the books you want to read and said, "Send me these books." You might find this odd, but we actually find this a bit confusing! The thing is, of course, what do you mean by "send?"

Send them in the future as replacements for the books I return (i.e. add them all to my request list).
Send them all now (all that are available, that is).
Send me some now (which?) and add the rest to my list.

If you’re up to your chosen book supply (also called your "maximum" or "quota") and if it’s a long book order, we’ll usually assume you want us to add them all to your request list. But if you’re low on books, haven’t had any for a while, or if your list is very short, we’ll probably send them all if we can. Or, we may find the middle ground and send some and add the rest to their list.

Another confusing instruction is "Send me these books as they become available" or "Send when available." Well sometimes they’re all available. What if you listed 30 or 40 titles and they’re all available to be mailed? Do you really want them all, perhaps way over your "maximum?" Probably not, but that’s what it seems to mean. We can do that if it’s what you really want. If it is, we suggest that you contact us about revising your "maximum."

So, unless you tell us otherwise, we will probably interpret "send" as meaning "send in the future as replacements for the books I return to the library," and will add them to your list. But we shouldn’t have to guess what you want. We’d like nothing more than to have your clear instructions to follow! Please be specific about your wishes when you send us a list of the books you want.

Requesting Books

On the subject of requesting books again, please note that when you have the book numbers from a catalog, that’s all we need. You don’t have to give us the authors and titles. The book numbers start with RC for cassette books and BR for braille.

If you don’t know the number of a book you want, then please provide the author and title and we’ll check to see if we have it, or can get it.

An Easy Fix, Once You Know

A library in Florida shared this information with us, so we’re letting you know so that you might avoid the problem.

When charging your cassette machine, be sure that you’re using an electrical outlet that is always live. We’ve heard of at least one instance where a person plugged in his machine to charge the battery unaware that the outlet was controlled by a wall switch. When he shut off the light, power was cut off to the outlet and the machine never got a full charge. His library sent him several machines before figuring out why they all failed to work. Please check this and ensure that your machine charges correctly for your continued enjoyment of the recorded books.

Google Accessible Search

If you have done any web searching you have probably got frustrated with the adverts and all the "junk" that fills the screen. Even without that, complex, graphical designs that pack a lot of information into web pages create a lot of difficulty for low vision users who rely on screen magnifiers, and blind web searchers who rely on a screen reader to convert text into spoken words waste a lot of time identifying and skipping over extraneous page content.

To combat this, Google recently launched a new search site designed for use by people with visual disabilities. Google Accessible Search favors pages with few visual distractions, giving priority to pages that do the best job of balancing pertinent data with solid design, sorting the sites based on simplicity of page layout, quality of design, and the organization and labeling of information on each page. A possible shortcoming is that searches return fewer results because this means that cluttered pages don’t come to the top of the results list, so the question remains as to how successful the search technology can be in balancing the need to display easily accessible results while also giving the most relevant results. Yahoo has also taken steps towards improving site accessibility by adding headings to the sites to make it easier to navigate screen reader commands.

People with vision loss have long struggled with such problems, and it’s encouraging that these big-name companies are beginning to address this. Google’s site is at http://labs.google.com/accessible. For more information and user comments, go to the American Foundation for the Blind’s blog site: http://www.afb.org/blog.

Labels for Literacy

Labels for Literacy is a program that provides free stick-on labels to identify common products in braille and large type. Product labels include those for food, beverages, cosmetics, pet products, personal hygiene, and household supplies and appliances. In addition to enhancing the equality of access to brand information, Labels for Literacy has an equal mission of promoting literacy among the blind and visually impaired. For more information, call (866) 32-LABEL or go to their website at www.labelsforliteracy.com.

Why Rewind?

Our book inspection staff open every cassette book that we receive back from circulation to check for completeness and damage. They also check to see if the cassettes have been rewound to the beginning, and if not, then they must rewind each cassette so that the book is at the beginning for the next person who reads it. This is why we ask you to help by rewinding a book before mailing it back to us. You are therefore part of our "quality control" team, and play a vital role by helping to shorten the book inspection process and letting us send the books back out faster. To rewind a cassette, place it in the machine with the braille side up, and press the "Rewind" button. It’s fully rewound when it stops.

Replacing the Cassettes

This also concerns book inspection. Replacing the cassettes in the mailing container in the proper reading order will also save time for our inspection staff and for the next borrower. Also, the correct placement will help prevent damage to the tapes when in the mail.

Please arrange the tapes so that the braille side of each is uppermost, with side 1 on top of side 5 in the front compartment of the container. The "front" is next to the latching straps, the opposite side to the hinge.

If there are additional tapes, side 9 should be on the far side of the box with the open end of the cassette (where the tape leader is showing) away from you. You will find that when you use this arrangement the cassettes easily slip into place. If it doesn’t go in easily, you’re probably not doing it right. If there’s a side 13, this should be under side 9, with the same orientation. We appreciate your help in streamlining the service and protecting the books.

Mention of a product or service in this newsletter does not constitute endorsement by this library. Our intention is to increase an awareness of programs, services, and products that may be helpful to our patrons.

Last Updated: June 15, 2009

New York State Library