[NFBNJ] NFB: Newsletter From President Riccobono Imagineering Our Future

[joe ruffalo]

Greetings to all on our announcement list!
As stated previously, I have forwarded educational, motivational and 
inspirational material for all to read and share.
There is much to offer in President Riccobono's newsletter.

Keep well.
Joe Ruffalo, President
NFBNJ
973 743 0075
nfbnj1 at verizon.net
www.nfbnj.org

**

Imagineering Our Future
  Issue 88
August 2016


In this issue:

Message from the President
What's News at the NFB
Braille Certification Training Program
>From the tenBroek Library
Education
Independence Market
Advocacy
Access Technology
NFB Calendar
Citation
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Message from the President
Dear Friends:

We recently returned from the annual family reunion—the convention of the 
National Federation of the Blind. If you have come to know our organization, 
had the opportunity to break bread with Federation members, and experienced 
our national convention, you understand why many of us think of it as a 
family reunion. For blind people, the convention is like home. It is a space 
where blindness is not the characteristic that defines us and where we are 
allowed to consider our hopes and dreams without the unfounded limits that 
others often place upon us based on their false fears about blindness.

The poet Maya Angelou once said, "The ache for home lives in all of us, the 
safe place where we can go as we are and not be questioned." It is in that 
space, that home, that we create for each other in the National Federation 
of the Blind that we can examine the false limits placed upon us and 
consider how we continue to expand the possibilities. In the environment of 
the national convention, I always learn something new about the 
possibilities for blind people and I get energized to go out and transform 
our dreams into reality.

So much of what we hear about in the world has to do with fear. In fact, 
much of the policy that is promoted, the restrictions that are set, and the 
anger we experience comes from fear. Yet, often in our home is where we have 
the least amount of fear and where we can take a step back and reflect on 
the world around us. I was honored to have the opportunity at our home of 
the national convention to explore fear—how it artificially limits us and 
how we might positively understand it to expand the possibilities for us. I 
invite you to read "The Understanding of Fear and the Power of Progress" to 
see my thoughts on this topic and to share your own thoughts so we can 
continue to expand our understanding and explore new opportunities together.

I also invite you to make plans to come to our family reunion next summer in 
Orlando. During the fall, many of our state affiliates will be having 
state-level reunions and I also invite you to plan to attend one of those as 
a way of getting to know our organization at the local level.

Warmest regards,

Graphic: Signature of Mark Riccobono

Mark A. Riccobono, President
National Federation of the Blind

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What's News at the NFB
Submit Title II SANPRM Comments - Deadline Extended
The deadline has been extended to September 2, 2016, to submit comments on 
web accessibility to the DOJ. More information can be found on at 
https://nfb.org/titleiisanprm and http://www.ada.gov/regs2016/sanprm.html. 
To submit your comments, visit the NFB's webform or contact Kyle Walls at 
(410) 659-9314, extension 2223, or kwalls at nfb.org.

Health Care Kiosk Accessibility Agreement
The Massachusetts Attorney General, Maura Healey, and the National 
Federation of the Blind have reached an agreement with Pursuant Health, a 
company that manufactures and operates thousands of self-service health care 
kiosks in retail stores nationwide, that requires them to make kiosks and 
website accessible to consumers who are blind or visually impaired.

NFB-NEWSLINE® Expands Feature Allowing Independent Job Searches for the 
Blind
The NFB has added USA JOBS to the job listings feature of NFB-NEWSLINE®, a 
free information service it provides, with support from state sponsors, for 
people who are blind and print disabled. You can find details online on the 
NFB website.

New York Lawsuit Over Inaccessible Online Voter Registration
The NFB, the Center for the Independence of the Disabled, and individual 
plaintiffs who are blind, sued the New York State Board of Elections and 
Department of Motor Vehicles (DMV) over online voter registration that is 
inaccessible to people with disabilities. Find the full press release at 
https://nfb.org/national-federation-blind-and-others-sue-new-york-over-inaccessible-online-voter-registration-people.

HathiTrust and the NFB to Make 14M+ Books Accessible
More than fourteen million digital books will soon be made available to 
blind and print-disabled users, thanks to a new collaboration involving the 
NFB and the HathiTrust Digital Library, a digital repository hosted at the 
University of Michigan. Find out more online.

Adult Rehabilitation and Employment Survey
If you are blind or visually impaired, reside in the United States, and are 
at least eighteen years of age, we invite you to participate in this survey 
so that we can gain a better understanding of your experiences as an adult 
who is blind or visually impaired, including your experiences with 
education, employment, training, and vocational rehabilitation.

If you complete this survey, you will be entered into a drawing in which 
five individuals will win a $100 VISA gift card. We offer you three ways to 
complete the survey: website (www.pdrib.com/ares), email 
(pdrib2016 at gmail.com), or phone [(318) 257-2029].

2016 Blind Educator of the Year
The NFB has named Kathy Nimmer, a teacher at William Henry Harrison High 
School in West Lafayette, Indiana, as its 2016 Blind Educator of the Year. 
Read the full press release at 
https://nfb.org/national-federation-blind-names-kathy-nimmer-2016-blind-educator-year.

2016 Distinguished Educator of Blind Students
The NFB has named Janet Bernhardt, an educational consultant at the 
Louisiana Center for the Blind, as its 2016 Distinguished Educator of Blind 
Students. Read the full press release at 
https://nfb.org/national-federation-blind-names-janet-bernhardt-2016-distinguished-educator-blind-children.

Dr. Jacob Bolotin Awards
At the 2016 National Convention, the ninth annual Dr. Jacob Bolotin Awards 
were presented to four innovators who are helping blind people live the 
lives they want. The list of winners is available at 
https://nfb.org/national-federation-blind-awards-50000-1.

National Federation of the Blind Scholarship Winners
The winners of its 2016 scholarships were awarded at the 2016 NFB National 
Convention in Orlando. You can find the list of winners at 
https://nfb.org/national-federation-blind-recognizes-thirty-outstanding-blind-students-0.

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Braille Certification Training Program
Under a contract with the National Library Service for the Blind and 
Physically Handicapped, Library of Congress (NLS), the National Federation 
of the Blind administers the courses leading to NLS certification of Braille 
transcribers and proofreaders.

Starting in January 2015, all new students in the literary 
transcribing/proofreading courses began learning under the rules of Unified 
English Braille (UEB), and students who had been working in the older 
version of the course were switched to the new version during the year.

Successful completion of these rigorous courses requires a great deal of 
time and effort on the part of the students. We congratulate the following 
individuals who earned certification in literary transcribing during the 
month of March, April, and May, 2016, achieving certificates under the rules 
of Unified English Braille:

Arizona
Brendan Goldberg, Phoenix

Arkansas
Nicholas D. Swinney, Little Rock

Colorado
Daniel William Augusti Wilcox, Burlington

Georgia
Arnold William McElroy, Alamo

Iowa
Gene E. Campbell, Anamosa
Rodney Wayne Minter, Newton

North Carolina
Tevin D. McNeill, Laurinburg

Ohio
Jessica Thomas, Cleveland

Virginia
Sandra Hofstadler, Troy
Nancy Elizabeth van Kluyve, Troy

Washington
Angelica Dibella Lira, Gig Harbor

Wisconsin
Jamie L. Krueger, Oshkosh
Christopher Robinson, Oshkosh

The updating of the Nemeth and music courses to align with UEB is ongoing. 
Congratulations to the following students who achieved certification in the 
current version of the Nemeth transcribing course during the months of 
March, April, and May:

California
Leo Sisco, Camarillo
Deborah C. Ting, Stanford

Delaware
Tyreek D. Brown, Wilmington

Indiana
Nick A. Cherry, Bunker Hill

Iowa
John Ray Estes, Anamosa

Nebraska
Petr Viktorovich Strizheus, Lincoln

Ohio
Allan Ray Abruzzino, Grafton

South Carolina
Melissa Faye Burriss, Greenwood

Texas
Jennifer Susanne Effren, Copperas Cove

For transcribers and proofreaders who were certified prior to the adoption 
of UEB and need to update their credentials, a test was developed to allow 
them to earn a letter of proficiency in UEB, which is an add-on credential 
to an existing certificate. As of this writing, 140 individuals have earned 
this letter of proficiency in Unified English Braille from the Library of 
Congress.

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>From the tenBroek Library
tenBroek Library Partners with Misericordia University on Summer Internship 
Program
This summer the Jacobus tenBroek Library was pleased to partner with 
Misericordia University (MU) to administer our very first summer library 
internship program. MU is a Catholic university located in Dallas, 
Pennsylvania, incidentally only about a twenty-minute drive from downtown 
Wilkes-Barres, the birthplace of the National Federation of the Blind in 
1940. Founded in 1924 by the Sisters of Mercy, MU’s mission is to provide 
their students with a quality education based on the tenets of mercy, 
service, justice, and hospitality. One of their initiatives is to send 
students out into the community to help build their professional experience 
and serve with like-minded organizations. With the NFB’s core commitment to 
advocating for the equality and independence of blind people, the two 
organizations found plenty of common ground when creating this program and 
the partnership has proven to be beneficial for all parties.

Many applications were received, but ultimately one intern was selected for 
the six-week program, during which time they focused on preservation and 
documentation projects in the Federation’s archives. For several years, the 
tenBroek Library has been recording oral history interviews with prominent 
NFB leaders and some of our most devoted partners in the blindness field. 
Until now the contents of these recordings, most of which range from 90 to 
180 minutes in length, have been largely undocumented and unused. To begin 
making use of these fascinating recordings, interview logs featuring major 
questions and conversation topics with accurate timestamps were created. 
These logs will enrich the documentation on the program, help archives staff 
to plan for the future of the program, and assist researchers looking for 
first-hand perspectives on specific subjects.

The other major project tackled during the internship period involved 
rehousing a portion of the NFB’s extensive print photo collection, which 
needed updating to ensure its long-term viability. Also, as part of MU’s 
requirements for earning course credit, a research paper involving resources 
in the tenBroek Library and the NFB’s long-established philosophy was 
written and submitted for consideration in the Braille Monitor.

We would like to thank intern Alex Lester for his work this summer. Alex’s 
experiences while working in the tenBroek Library are documented in the 
"Interns' Corner" on MU’s local history projects blog. Additionally, the 
tenBroek Library would like to thank Dr. Jennifer Black, assistant professor 
in MU’s History and Government Department, for collaborating on the 
internship’s format, managing student recruitment, and serving as MU’s 
liaison during the program. We would also like to thank Jessica Garner, 
former MU archivist, for helping to establish the partnership between the 
NFB and MU. We look forward to continuing this successful partnership next 
summer.

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Education
NFB EQ
On June 19-25, 2016, the National Federation of the Blind hosted the second 
of three NFB EQ programs associated with its National Center for Blind Youth 
in Science initiative, which is funded by a three-year grant from the 
National Science Foundation (Grant No. 1322855). NFB EQ served twenty-one 
blind students (of high school age), and during the course of the week our 
NFB EQ students were tasked with solving a real-life problem, which required 
them to engineer solutions within some pretty hefty constraints. One piece 
of the solution required the students to design and build a life-sized 
watercraft. Another piece of the solution was to create and design a water 
filtration system to safely transport drinking water in their watercrafts. 
It is through this project that our students are able to hone their 
engineering skills—from technical knowledge, to problem-solving abilities, 
to the understanding that through engineering one can improve other people’s 
quality of life. Photos from NFB EQ are forthcoming and can be found on the 
National Federation of the Blind’s Facebook page. The next NFB EQ program 
will be held on July 31 through August 6, 2016, in addition to an NFB EQ 
teacher cohort program held August 2-6, 2016.

NFB BELL Academy
As of the first week of August, thirty-five NFB BELL Academy sites have been 
completed this summer, six will be partially completed, and five are ready 
to begin later in August. Over three hundred students from thirty states and 
the District of Columbia have received more than 17,000 hours of support in 
Braille and nonvisual skill development in a supportive atmosphere from 
positive blind adult role models. When combined with high expectations from 
family and the community, our NFB BELL Academy students are prepared to live 
the lives they want!

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Independence Market
At the beginning of July, the NFB Independence Market could be found in the 
exhibit hall at our annual national convention in Orlando, Florida. Visitors 
had an opportunity to browse our entire collection of sales products and 
much of the free literature available from the NFB on various 
blindness-related topics. We bring all of our sales items, because we know 
that our customers appreciate the chance to closely examine products before 
making a purchase. We also bring some of the free literature the NFB 
produces to acquaint especially new convention attendees with more of the 
NFB’s positive can-do approach to blindness. And, of course, we would not be 
able to operate our Independence Market at convention without the many, many 
volunteers who help out as product demonstrators, store keepers, and 
cashiers. A big thank you goes out to all of you!

A question we frequently hear is, “What’s new at the Independence Market 
this year?” Here is a partial list.

As some clocks we have been offering for years become no longer available, 
we look for new ones to add to our product offerings. This year we have a 
new talking travel clock and a new low-vision clock. The Talking Travel 
Clock with Countdown Timer and Vibrating Alarm is fully accessible and 
speaks in a male voice. The features include time and date announcements, an 
optional hourly announcement, an audible and/or vibrating alarm, and a 
countdown timer. The setting buttons and date announcement button are 
located under a protective cover. The LCD display shows the time and date, 
and the foldout stand facilitates ease of viewing. Our Low Vision Digital 
LED Alarm Clock displays the time in three-inch-high red digits and operates 
with AC power. The alarm, featuring a nine-minute snooze function, can be 
set for high or low volume.

Another popular category of products are our games. We now have a portable 
Magnetic Checkers set, that makes it easy to play the game on the go. The 
game pieces are either square or round and differ in color.  The game board 
measures 10 3/4 by 8 3/4 inches and the white squares are raised and the 
black ones are recessed. Our Tactile Cribbage Board, used to keep score when 
playing the cribbage card game, is also new. The pegs can be differentiated 
by touch and are stored in the board. The board comes with Braille and print 
directions, but the playing cards must be purchased separately. We also 
added the Quiddler card game to our product offerings. This game is a 
fascinating cross between Scrabble and rummy and can be played by anyone who 
can read and write. The cards are marked in Braille, and Braille and print 
instructions are included.

We are often asked if we sell a low-cost, easy-to-operate digital recorder. 
We now carry the Olympus Note Corder Dp-311, which we believe fits the bill. 
Use this basic, digital, audio recorder with easy-to-use tactile controls to 
record voice memos, lectures, and more. Features include three recording 
modes; a high quality, large microphone; an external microphone jack; 
variable playback speed; optional noise cancelation during playback; a 
headphone jack; and a high-power speaker. The unit records in MP3 format. 
Recordings may be stored in the two-gig internal memory (166 hours of 
recording time) or on SD cards (not included). We also provide Braille and 
print instructions written by one of our members, making learning to use the 
recorder even easier.

In the next issue of Imagineering we will introduce the remaining products 
that were new this year.

For more information about the products and literature available from the 
NFB Independence Market, please visit us online or contact us via email at 
independencemarket at nfb.org or by phone at (410) 659-9314, extension 2216.

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Advocacy
Accessibility and Self-Advocacy in Higher Education
Just in time for fall semester, the National Federation of the Blind has 
released the following resources for college and graduate students and 
college administration. Equal access on campus remains a priority area for 
the NFB. Too often, blind students are dissuaded from the classes and 
degrees of their choice because campuses do not have procedures in place to 
provide accessible textbooks, internships, learning management systems, and 
other electronic information technology. Self-advocacy is often a critical 
skill for success in higher education. Take time now to review the 
information below and forward the resources to other blind students and 
campus administrators.

•    Self-Advocacy in Higher Education Toolkit Version 2.0: 
https://nfb.org/self-advocacy-higher-education
•    High-Stakes Testing Self-Advocacy Toolkit: 
https://nfb.org/high-stakes-testing-self-advocacy-toolkit
•    Higher Education Accessibility Online Resource Center: 
https://nfb.org/higher-education-accessibility-online-resource-center

For more information, contact Valerie Yingling, paralegal, at (410) 
659-9314, extension 2440, or vyingling at nfb.org.

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Access Technology
In July, the access technology team flew, if not literally (though that 
would be a welcome skill) then at least in spirit. At national convention, 
as part of the access technology seminar, we hosted sessions on academic 
ebooks, Pearson’s accessible equation editor, and how to build sites 
accessibly in Drupal and WordPress.

We’ve also been busy planning the next few accessibility boutiques. The July 
boutique on WordPress was already on the books, and we have now added one on 
"Testing Accessibility with NVDA" on August 11, and another on "Accessible 
Websites Made Accessibly: An Introduction to Drupal," on September 26. The 
boutiques are held in Baltimore at the National Federation of the Blind 
Jernigan Institute with support from the Maryland Department of Disability 
through a Nonvisual Accessibility Initiatives grant. For more information, 
please visit https://nfb.org/free-accessibility-training-boutiques.

Finally, because nothing refreshes the mind like a new piece of technology 
to try out, the team has written a two-part blog post on the BrailleNote 
Touch. If you are curious about what was arguably one of the most 
anticipated releases of the year, head over to the blog for a matched set of 
informed opinions.

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NFB Calendar
Upcoming Events
May 23-August 26, 2016: NFB BELL Academy held at forty-six sites throughout 
the nation. More information at https://nfb.org/bell-academy.

July 31-August 6: NFB EQ (second iteration)

August 2-6: NFB EQ teacher cohort

August 18-25: WBU-ICEVI General Assembly, Rosen Centre Hotel, Orlando, 
Florida, www.wbu-icevi2016.org

State Conventions
Arizona - September 9-11

West Virginia - September 8-11

North Carolina - September 16-18

North Dakota - September 17

Maine - September 24

Wyoming - September 24

Hawaii - October 1-2

Kentucky - September 30-October 2

Minnesota - September 30-October 2

Alaska - October 7-8

Georgia - October 7-9

Iowa - October 7-9

Indiana - October 7-9

Montana - October 7-9

Nebraska - October 7-9

District of Columbia - October 12-15

Oregon - October 14-16

Rhode Island - October 14-15

Washington - October 14-16

California - October 21-23

Arkansas - October 28-30

Colorado - October 28-30

Delaware - October 28-29

Illinois - October 28-30

Maryland - October 28-30

New York - October 28-30

South Carolina - October 28-30

Vermont - October 29

Connecticut - November 4-6

Kansas - November 4-6

Michigan - November 4-6

Texas - November 4-6

New Jersey - November 10-13

Nevada - November 11-13

Ohio - November 11-13

Pennsylvania - November 11-13

Virginia - November 11-13

Puerto Rico - November 19

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Citation
It is not blindness that is to be feared but rather the low expectations and 
misconceptions about blindness. We have walked alone and marched together; 
we have tested the possibilities and we have not found the limits; we have 
faced the fear and we have transformed it to hope—we are the National 
Federation of the Blind.

– Mark A. Riccobono. “The Understanding of Fear and the Power of Progress.” 
2016 NFB National Convention, Orlando, Florida, July 5, 2016.

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Interesting links:

Archive of Straight Talk About Vision Loss videos

National Center for Blind Youth in Science

Access Technology Tips

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Blogs:

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Voice of the Nation's Blind



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