[Greater-Baltimore] The recording studio at State Library

Charles Innes chinnes2 at gmail.com
Thu Mar 24 16:18:20 UTC 2016


     Madam President

It has come to our attention that the recording studio at the State Library for The Blind at 415 Park Avenue  in Baltimore has recorded only one book in three years and has a back-log of sixty books of interest to be recorded at unspecified future times.This was as of late January. 

 This appears to be a remarkably dysfunctional agency .  the responsible persons, Wilhelmina and the recording  technician are completely incapable of fixit.
I've talked to the people in charge. Some are individually clueless and beyond  correction.
Neither  one have any idea of how to manage volunteer readers or how to deal with the technical problems.
They'll tell you its about a lack of money to buy new recording equipment, but it isn't 
1. The State Library is using volunteer readers.
No one in their right mind relies upon volunteer readers to do any important jobs of any kind for blind persons. 
Volunteers show up if and when they wish to. 
2. Studio employees only utilize a volunteer reader for one hour at a time in therecording booth.   Wilhelmina has made this judgment.   
There are between two and four complete soundproof recording studios, built at great cost to taxpayers, but their use is *insignificant.   
This is government waste at its worst.
3.   The technician is a nice young man who understands all about the  new National Library Service recording protocols and software, but who has NO social skills or concept of how to manage readers.
He has misguidedly decided  to undertake "teaching the NLS recording software ... to the readers".
Its not going to happen.
This genius won't even run the recording equipment for them. Its not in his job description.
Plus it is unfair and completely impractical to ask any reader, voluntary or paid, to master  placing beep-tones etc. 
He's there to operate the recording equipment and he won't do it.
And of course, none of these dedicated state-employees will sit down and read a book into a microphone.

4.   The  laboriously built MARYLANDIA collection  of recordings and lots of other valuable materials are  WASTING while the house nerds fool around with re-mastering on new digital media.  
This is a **dysfunctional agency, which has lost sight of its mission to serve blind and disabled patrons.

5.  I have an overwhelming sense of  lethargy, laziness and greed from the responsible  Library employees.
Their salaries  are more important to them than any of us blind persons.  
Ken Jernigan tried to warn us: Given a lack of oversight and supervision, State agencies sometimes utilize 95% of available budgets  on their own salaries and employee perquisites, and pass-through only 5%, if we are lucky, in direct benefits to blind clients.

6. it would cost little  to hire readers or solicit high-profile reputable actors or librarians to read these books, as (*all other libraries in the NLS cooperating system do.
 This library presently has a staff of 13 to 15 persons.   None of them read to the blind?
If someone cleared the dead wood out of this agency, I am certain that the annual budget would have enough money to  accommodate a couple of readers.
 Plus Many published books will never become available in accessible technologies like I text or Kindle. 
Even Recording For the Blind seldom takes more than six months to produce a desirable book.

7.  These buffoons have  made a simple process very complicated, laborious and improbable. 
For instance, There must be *two volunteers present at any one time and two copies of the book to be read for any recording to take place "so that one can check the other for accuracy".
THEN the recording must be checked *again by someone listening to the recording and reading the book at the same time!
Neither of the Library employees will do that, of course, its too much *work. 
These folks have lost their way. They have failed to deliver useful recordings in  a timely manner.

8.  So these discussions have been going on between myself and various librarians for over 36 months.
As requested, I  got the book cleared with NLS and locally, then found two copies of it and brought them to the library in March 2013.  Nothing has happened.

 Back in the day, thirty years ago  I handed  the library two expensive copies of the textbook  MARYLAND AND AMERICA: 1940 to 1980 by Professor Callcott.  It was used by high school and college students studying local political history. four months later  we received 22 cassettes containing the entire book. Nothing complicated and was the default textbook on Maryland state history at the time. 

** We blind people are being *chumped by these bureaucrat tape-worms.
I think its time for the Major media to take a careful look at  the Library's annual  BUDGET.    An official audit  by the Governor's  office might throw some light on what they all are doing with our money.
Yes, I am a blind  TAX PAYER, not a charity case like some of these sad  sack state employees who consider their paychecks an entitlement.  
We blind people aren't supposed to know what's going on anyway, are we? 

Yours respectfully
Charles H. Innes
phone 410 235 6272;
email   chinnes2@ gmail.com


CC President Mark Riccobono



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