If a person can’t see to read or hold a book he or she can still enjoy a good western novel or romance, a variety of non-fiction titles and more than 70 magazines in audio form.
It’s easy — Bud Hinkle was convinced within a few minutes at a “show-and-tell” led by Toni Harrell, director of Talking Books for the State Library of Kansas, at the Pratt Public Library on Thursday.
His wife enjoys television; he can’t see it well, so he sits there “like an old man. Why didn’t I come in earlier?” he asked himself.
He selected the advanced machine that will allow him to navigate through a book by chapters and bookmark passages he may want to come back to. The basic machine has fewer buttons to push. He can pause, fast-forward, change the reading speed and volume or use headphones. The cassette player weighs just two and a half pounds and will run about 29 hours on a battery before needing to be recharged.
His first book will be the Louis L’Amour story that was provided in the demonstration. Whenever he returns a cassette, he can get another automatically, based on favorite genres he selected, or he can request specific titles.
Every Friday he can download titles to a flash drive if he wants to. Harrell is working with the Pratt library so patrons without Internet access can use a library computer for downloading.
The program is free to anyone who qualifies because of vision or physical disabilities, such as Parkinson’s disease and cerebral palsy, that make holding a book difficult.
Author Laura Hillenbrand did most of the research for her best-seller “Seabiscuit,” with Talking Books, due to weakness from fibromyalgia.
The Kansas Talking Books collection includes more than 50,000 titles and contains a wide variety of fiction and non-fiction titles for adults and children. About 2,000 new titles are added each year. A project is underway to make more Kansas books available.
About 7,000 Kansans use the service. Harrell expects that the number will grow — as we live longer, there is a greater chance that vision will decline.
The public library has books on tape and CDs; however the Talking Books program makes a greater number of titles available and a person can participate without leaving home.
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If a person can’t see to read or hold a book he or she can still enjoy a good western novel or romance, a variety of non-fiction titles and more than 70 magazines in audio form.
It’s easy — Bud Hinkle was convinced within a few minutes at a “show-and-tell” led by Toni Harrell, director of Talking Books for the State Library of Kansas, at the Pratt Public Library on Thursday.
His wife enjoys television; he can’t see it well, so he sits there “like an old man. Why didn’t I come in earlier?” he asked himself.
He selected the advanced machine that will allow him to navigate through a book by chapters and bookmark passages he may want to come back to. The basic machine has fewer buttons to push. He can pause, fast-forward, change the reading speed and volume or use headphones. The cassette player weighs just two and a half pounds and will run about 29 hours on a battery before needing to be recharged.
His first book will be the Louis L’Amour story that was provided in the demonstration. Whenever he returns a cassette, he can get another automatically, based on favorite genres he selected, or he can request specific titles.
Every Friday he can download titles to a flash drive if he wants to. Harrell is working with the Pratt library so patrons without Internet access can use a library computer for downloading.
The program is free to anyone who qualifies because of vision or physical disabilities, such as Parkinson’s disease and cerebral palsy, that make holding a book difficult.
Author Laura Hillenbrand did most of the research for her best-seller “Seabiscuit,” with Talking Books, due to weakness from fibromyalgia.
The Kansas Talking Books collection includes more than 50,000 titles and contains a wide variety of fiction and non-fiction titles for adults and children. About 2,000 new titles are added each year. A project is underway to make more Kansas books available.
About 7,000 Kansans use the service. Harrell expects that the number will grow — as we live longer, there is a greater chance that vision will decline.
The public library has books on tape and CDs; however the Talking Books program makes a greater number of titles available and a person can participate without leaving home.
