India's first online Braille library with 12,000 books launched

Mumbai: Visually impaired students have found a new avenue to access books online.

 The country's first online Braille library, with 12,000 books in its catalogue, was launched

in Mumbai last week and will cater to students pursuing higher education in institutions 

across India

It is a joint initiative by the National Institute of Visually Handicapped (NIVH), Dehradun 

& the Xavier's Resource Centre for Visually Challenged, Mumbai. The library allows students

 to download books and read them through refreshable Braille display systems (RBDS). The

 initiative has a website that will host members, which would be the institute's libraries 

across

 the country. The libraries have been given a username and a password

.
The libraries will upload all books available to their online catalogue. To gain access, a 

student needs to login with the institute's username and password. The books can then be

 downloaded instantly and transferred to the RBDS (a flat horizontal monitor consisting of

80 cells). The download appears on the screen of RBDS as raised units for the students to 

read.

Anuradha Mohit, director, NIVH, said, "Now we have a generation of young computer users

 among blind persons. Therefore, the launch has been very timely." Though, she admitted t

 the technology is not as advanced as that in developed nations, she informed this was a

 good start.

The RBDS would enable students to read only one to two sentences at a time.

100 such monitors have been dispatched by the NIVH, which will be used on a shared basis

 by students.

The portal has books in 13 languages that display text in the corresponding Braille script.

Mohit said by March 2013, they aim to have books in all the Indian languages. She added

 that with the bulk purchase of RBDS, it's hoped the cost of equipment would come down

. Students will then have more such devices at their disposal. Students, however, will have

 to wait for some time to access the library, as several institutes are yet to receive the RBDS

 devices.