[VABS] Nova

[Ashley Bramlett]

Michael,

I do not know about Virginia tech and I know of no blind students currently 
there.
I cannot confirm what they do but if they provide braille for any textbook 
requested, I wonder where they get the money for it as this would have to be 
outsourced to a braille contractor and its real expensive. Unless its math 
or science, personally, I think braille books are impractical in college. 
The books would be perhaps 25 volumes of braille and you only need them for 
the 16 weeks of the semester. If you had say four classes with 25 volumes of 
braille per book, storing the books would be impossible as that's 100 
volumes.

Yes I'm a braille reader. I learned this after large print so it was 
probably fourth or fifth grade before I was fast and fluent in my braille 
reading skills.
I'm not as good with audio and it was a struggle particularly in more fact 
based classes such as my history ones to use audio books when I went to 
college.
I'm low vision, but still like Niam I was in Fairfax county in public 
school.  I was provided my books in braille or for math in large print.
A few books came late, but that was the exception, not the norm.

At college, some schools will provide braille more readily than others. 
Perhaps VT somehow does it. Interesting.

It is not a law that colleges provide you books in braille. They are 
required to provide you equal access to the material other students get.
They have to provide reasonable accomodations which gives you access to the 
materials of your class.
They are not required to provide you the prefered accomodation.
The laws covering post secondary education are The Americans with 
disabilities act, title III, I think, and section 504 of the rehab act.

I liked the days of studying with braille hard copy because it was easier 
and I could use reading techniques like my sighted peers were doing such as 
skimming for words, searching for the headings of sections, flipping ahead 
in the chapter to see what was next and my most important use of braille was 
seeing the spelling of words such as proper nouns.

So, my point is that braille is a good way to access your books but you will 
likely not get this in college provided by your disability office.
If you do extra work and are a member of NLS and bookshare though, you can 
provide yourself some braille formats.

If you are fortunate to have a braille display or notetaker with a display, 
you may be able to read your texts on your display hooked up to your pc or 
laptop though assuming you have electronic texts provided from your 
disability office.
Another way for you, but not your school, to provide yourself braille in 
post secoondary education is to use bookshare. Bookshare is an online 
library of scanned books and textbooks in accessible electronic text. You 
will have to pay for this though, I believe.
There is an annual fee for it. Once you are a member, you can access its 
library of nearly a million books.
The books are provided in many electronic formats. One format is .brf. BRF 
is a braille file format that is conducive to reading via your braille 
display.
Other formats are daisy text, pdf, and a format you can read online.

Another source of both electronic braille and hard copy braille is the NLS 
braille books. In virginia, you can receive them from the Richmond library; 
the library and resource center, LRC, is next to the state rehab center.
LRC can send you books in the mail. But, if you want electronic braille and 
have a display, you can simply download the brf format off the Bard website.
NLS does not supply textbooks. However, you can get other books from them 
such as classic novels, sacred texts, and some humanities books for 
research.
For instance, they might assign you to read A Tale of Two Cities, The Great 
Gadsby or To Kill a Mockingbird in your english class.
You can obtain them in braille.
If you need to research famous people for a history class, you might find 
book sources in braille too. For instance, when I researched Queen Victoria 
and Woodrow Wilson, I got something in braille.
If you need to cite page numbers though, you will not have this in the 
braille copy. However, if you are using APA or a citation style which needs 
no pages, this works as a source.

Finally, if you need books that are not copyrighted anymore due to their 
age, you might find them online. These online sources in html are readable 
with a screen reader or your braille display. So I did not have to be 
connected to my computer to read with my braille Note, I copied the text to 
a file, saved it to a USB drive, and then put the drive in my notetaker.
A source of online books is Project Gutenberg. You can find it at
www.gutenberg.org.


Thanks for writing Michael. Sorry to deliver some disappointing news about 
your right to receive braille in college.

Nova will provide braille tests though with enough notice.

Ashley
-----Original Message----- 
From: Michael Munn via VABS
Sent: Thursday, July 20, 2017 12:11 AM
To: Virginia Association of Blind Students list
Cc: Michael Munn
Subject: Re: [VABS] Nova

Hi Ashley, are you a braille reader? I am ask you that because they should
have the book in braille as well. This is a law  that nova have to follow.
You should not change your preferred   learning style just because Nova
does not have the book  you need. Maybe you should tell them to emboss your
book in braille. As far I know that VT Virginia tech  they do braille  for
students who live in the State of Virginia.  Is long you have the hard copy
of your material.   This is where I got my 4H materials from. The people
who is in charge of the  braille department her name is Christa Miller.  I
will send you her email. Just let you know that
VT Virginia tech they do things very slow so I suggest that you should
request your book in braille  before next semester. If you are a braille
reader you'll find that information helpful.
Take  care
Warmly Michael Munn
I
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