[Blindtlk] [BANA-Announce] BANA Honors Darleen Bogart with Braille Excellence Award

Wed Nov 18 00:28:41 UTC 2015

BANA logo

Press Release

November 17, 2015
For Immediate Release

Contact: Jennifer Dunnam, Chair
Braille Authority of North America
612-767-5658
chair at brailleauthority.org

BANA Honors Darleen Bogart
at 2015 Getting in Touch with Literacy Conference

The Braille Authority of North America (BANA) 
will proudly present its Braille Excellence Award 
to CNIB’s Darleen Bogart international braille 
advocate, braille transcriber, braille teacher, 
and Canada’s National Braille Convenor. This 
well-deserved honor will be presented November 
20th at the Awards Banquet hosted by the 2015 
Getting in Touch with Literacy Conference in Albuquerque, New Mexico.

The 2015 Braille Excellence Award is presented in 
grateful recognition of Darleen’s enormous 
contribution, not only to BANA and to North 
America, but to braille in a wider, global sense 
over several decades. Her extraordinary service 
and quiet leadership have helped braille remain 
viable and reliable while she has also been a 
leader in moving it forward and expanding its availability worldwide.

Darleen is the longest-standing member of the 
BANA Board and has served ably as its Chair as 
well as the leader of numerous BANA committees. 
Darleen’s international contributions are vast, 
especially in the development of Unified English 
Braille (UEB). She was a member of the planning 
committee for the first two international 
meetings on English braille, 1982 and 1988, and 
served as host in Canada for the founding meeting 
of ICEB 1991. She was a founding member and 
President of the Canadian Braille Authority, now 
known as Braille Literacy Canada, and served as 
its representative to the ICEB Executive from 1991 through 2012.

Because of the breadth of Darleen’s contributions 
and her far-reaching influence, it is difficult 
to isolate a singular accomplishment as her 
legacy. Perhaps her most notable service has been 
her steadfast leadership as Chair of the UEB 
Development Project from its 1991 BANA beginnings 
through its acceptance by ICEB in 2004. She then 
served from 2004–2010 as Chair of the Overarching 
Committee which completed the code. It was her 
wise and deliberative shepherding of UEB that led 
to its worldwide adoption and implementation. 
Through all this complex development and 
diplomacy, she has demonstrated deep commitment 
and respect for the evolving needs and views of 
all braille users, for her peers in the community 
of those who work with braille and on code 
committees, and for the traditions of braille as 
an elegant as well as time-proven working system. 
Of her work, Duxbury Systems founder Joe Sullivan 
wrote: “Without Darleen at the helm, I am very 
doubtful that the hope of a unified code with 
worldwide acceptance could have been realized.”

BANA created its Braille Excellence Award in 
honor of Louis Braille’s 200th birthday and 
awarded it for the first time in 2009. This will 
be only the fourth awarding of this prestigious 
award that recognizes people or organizations 
that have developed or contributed to a code, 
have developed code materials or software that 
supports codes, and/or who represent the highest 
standards of braille production.

Darleen’s remarkable commitment to the highest 
standards of braille and to those who rely on it 
has been the hallmark of her work and of her 
international contributions. Her leadership has 
inspired and enabled countless others to use and 
to champion braille. BANA invites you to join us in honoring her.

NOTE: This press release is also available in 
HTML on the BANA website at 
<http://mandrillapp.com/track/click/30489975/www.brailleauthority.org?p=eyJzIjoiSHBoOXlXSGRYa1h1ejZRaVV2VVZsU2RSQU9VIiwidiI6MSwicCI6IntcInVcIjozMDQ4OTk3NSxcInZcIjoxLFwidXJsXCI6XCJodHRwOlxcXC9cXFwvd3d3LmJyYWlsbGVhdXRob3JpdHkub3JnXFxcL3ByZXNzcmVsZWFzZXNcXFwvcHItMjAxNS0xMS5odG1sXCIsXCJpZFwiOlwiNTY2MDU4OWYyZGEzNDEyYWFhNTRiZTEzZmI2NGFlMGVcIixcInVybF9pZHNcIjpbXCJkZjBiY2Y2MWM3NjMwMTkyNjA5ZjYxOTYyMzc5MGY2NGZiNDZhNGVkXCJdfSJ9>http://www.brailleauthority.org/pressreleases/pr-2015-11.html. 

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The Board of BANA consists of appointed 
representatives from eighteen member 
organizations of braille producers, transcribers, teachers, and consumers.

The mission of the Braille Authority of North 
America is to assure literacy for tactile readers 
through the standardization of braille and/or tactile graphics.

The purpose of BANA is to promote and to 
facilitate the uses, teaching, and production of 
braille. Pursuant to this purpose, BANA will 
promulgate rules, make interpretations, and 
render opinions pertaining to braille codes and 
guidelines for the provisions of literary and 
technical materials and related forms and formats 
of embossed materials now in existence or to be 
developed in the future for the use of blind 
persons in North America. When appropriate, BANA 
shall accomplish these activities in 
international collaboration with countries using 
English braille. In exercising its function and 
authority, BANA shall consider the effects of its 
decisions on other existing braille codes and 
guidelines, forms and formats; ease of production 
by various methods; and acceptability to readers.

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