[Nfbmd] Question About Braille on elevators

[Powers, Terry (NIH/NCI) [E]]

Federal buildings usually use B for below ground or T for taris level.  If there are more than one level below ground, you will find B1, B2, and B3, like in bldg.. 31 at NIH.  Most use main or lobby for the first floor.  Along with the braille signs, there should have been raised line numbers, on the outer frame of the elevator.  Now some of the newer buildings, such as Shady Grove, where I am, use speech to announce the levels.  They should have also put the tactual signs, outside the frames of the elevators, but they did not.  This is not efficient for the deaf or if people are talking and you did not hear your floor, announced.  I have had to ask, is this the third floor, because I had been talking to someone and did not pay attention to my floor, being announced.

Terry Powers


From: Michelle Clark via Nfbmd [mailto:nfbmd at nfbnet.org]
Sent: Friday, March 13, 2015 1:41 PM
To: 'NFB of Maryland e-mail list'; 'NFB Chapter Presidents discussion list'
Subject: [Nfbmd] Question About Braille on elevators

Hello,

Can someone answer this question or point me in the right direction? There is a  small elevator next to my office door that did not have Braille on the outer portions so once it stopped, one had no clue of the floor in which it stopped. My building management worked with me to add the Braille.

However, yesterday I  checked it and it seems to be incorrect.

1.       The Braille on the first floor indicates "Main" but the numbers read "1". The main floor is not always the first floor. Should it say "1" as written on the placard along with Main?

2.       In the basement, the Braille has a  ".B", I  imagine to represent Basement, but that is not what it means in Braille.

3.       This is a  Federal Building.

They tell me they use a  prison Braille Program to do the Braill for them. However, I  am thinking the information that is wrong came from the person who sent it to the prison. Can I  get some ideas on how to handle this and some thoughts on the correct manner in which it should be represented in Braille?


Thanks,

Michelle
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