[Dtb-talk] A question about preferred book formatting

[Greg Kearney]

Well I''m noticing plenty of other tapes from other places that don't  
have it either so it seem not to be just an ABWA issue in any event.  
It sure would make my job simpler if it had been done but no one was  
thinking of that years ago.


Gregory Kearney
Manager - Accessible Media
Association for the Blind of Western Australia
61 Kitchener Avenue, PO Box 101
Victoria Park 6979, WA Australia

Telephone: +61 (08) 9311 8202
Telephone: +1 (307) 224-4022 (North America)
Fax: +61 (08) 9361 8696
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Email: gkearney at gmail.com

On 30/01/2010, at 8:32 PM, Tim Gillett wrote:

> Greg wrote:
>
> "Too bad they were not all tone indexed. I dont understand why they  
> would have stopped.
> Even with 2 track you could have done that...."
>
> I couldnt agree more, Greg.  But by April 1989 I had left the  
> organisation and so it was out of my hands.
>
> But equally, tone indexing in those days also required the borrower  
> have a tape player
> with the tone index search feature built in and working properly.  
> For example both the UK 6 track and the NLS 4 track players
> had such an index search feature.
> In my time at ABWA my TA and I worked hard to keep the search  
> feature working
> on the 1300 NLS players as it could be a little unreliable if not  
> checked at service time. Prior to our arrival, nobody bothered
> to maintain the tone index feature on the players. I doubt they even  
> knew about it or how to adjust it.
> The adjustment for it actually wasnt even mentioned in the factory  
> service manual. I discovered it for myself.
>
> But of course once the decision was made in the early 90's (after my  
> stint there) to scrap the NLS loan cassette player service to  
> borrowers,
> there was no way of knowing what sorts of cassette players borrowers  
> at home were using to play the library tapes.
>
> How many of such players even had a suitable tone index search  
> facility, and even if by a stroke of luck some of them did,
> who was going to ensure it was maintained in operating condition in  
> each borrower's individual player
> which could be any one of a number of makes and models on the market  
> at that time?
>
> The impossibility of now providing tone index search for borrowers'  
> tape players probably weakened the imperative
> to provide tone indexing at all on inhouse productions. Why record  
> index tones if many or most borrowers could not use them?
>
> But I'm only speculating. As to exactly why most ABWA titles were  
> not tone indexed, I'm not the right person to ask. It wasnt my call.
>
> Interestingly though,  we are back full circle to to the question of  
> why the NLS player service was dismantled in Western Australia as it  
> was.
> That decision may shed some light on the demise of tone indexing at  
> ABWA.
>
>
> Regards, Tim
>
> Tim Gillett
> Audio/Electronics Technician
> Perth, Western Australia
>
>
>
>
>
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