[Nfbf-l] Boston-based National Braille Press remains a top publisher for the blind

[Alan Dicey]

Dear Friends,
Speaking of Braille, I thought some would appreciate this article!
With Best Regards,
God Bless,
Alan
Plantation, Florida

Boston-based National Braille Press remains a top publisher for the blind
By James Sullivan
| Globe Correspondent   April 29, 2014
Matt Witterschein rivets binders at the National Braille Press in Boston's 
Fenway neighborhood.
photos by Suzanne Kreiter/Globe staff
More than 700 printed pages, "Harry Potter and the Goblet of Fire" is a very 
big book to convert into Braille. "The Joy of Cooking" is even bigger, 
topping out over 1,000 pages.
But never in its nearly 90-year history had the National Braille Press 
undertaken a project as large as the one it completed in 2011. Creating a 
Braille edition of the 1,600-page "New American Bible,'' with its freshly 
approved revisions by the US Catholic Bishops Conference, was something else 
entirely.
It took nearly 4,500 two-sided zinc plates for the National Braille Press to 
make that Bible - each edition composed of 8,846 thick pages in 45 volumes.
Commissioned by New York's Xavier Society for the Blind, the full run, 
destined for private homes, consisted of 150 copies.
To mark the occasion, a set was presented to Pope Benedict XVI at the 
Vatican in 2011. The nonprofit publisher, tucked away in Boston's Fenway 
neighborhood, had never before drawn so much attention. Its current 
president, who had worked in the local business world for 25 years, had no 
idea of the organization's existence  before he was recruited a half-dozen 
years ago.
Upon completion of the massive Bible job, the NBP had the metal plates 
recycled.
Though the company is located in a four-floor building big enough that it 
once housed a piano factory, storage of so many stamped plates would've been 
a major  headache.
So NBP president Brian MacDonald could only shake his head and smile when 
the Xavier Society requested a second printing of 100 copies. The company 
would have to re-create the plates.
"We kick ourselves now," he said recently, sizing up the last days of the 
monumentally labor-intensive, two-month-long print run for the Bible.
This time, said Jackie Sheridan, vice president of production, they're 
hoping to store the plates.
For the National Braille Press, facing challenges has become a way of life.
Amid a decline in Braille literacy and shifts in technology, the company 
remains one of the oldest and largest printers for the blind in America.
Besides printing Braille editions of hundreds of titles available to the 
sighted, NBP specializes in publishing works written by blind authors for 
blind readers.
Kim Charlson, director of the library at Perkins School for the Blind in 
Watertown, says NBP is one of the top five Braille presses in the country.
Whereas  Perkins itself produces about 200,000 pages of Braille a year, 
"they're doing in the millions of pages. They're a major producer."
Given the methodical process of setting printing plates and the fact that 
Braille coding, with its cells of raised dots on heavier paper, takes up so 
much more space than the printed word, the percentage of books that get 
printed in Braille is "a drop," says Charlson. Of an estimated 300,000 books 
published annually in the United States, "we're lucky if we can add 500 new 
braille titles to our collection  every year."
Perkins had a distinct role in the founding of the National Braille Press.
After losing his eyesight in a boyhood accident, Italian immigrant Francis 
Ierardi  attended the school. Two decades later, he founded the Weekly News, 
a Braille newspaper, and the National Braille Press was born.
The NBP is well known in the blind community for its own Braille primer for
parents
of blind children, "Just Enough to Know Better." For decades the company has
published
Our Special, a Good Housekeeping-style periodical for sightless homemakers.
In recent years, said MacDonald, they've moved into more lifestyle-oriented
books,
such as "Wine for Dummies" and books that provide useful knowledge such as
how a
sightless person can use her iPhone camera or Twitter.
Last week, a long wooden table was stacked with pages from "Froggy's Day
With Dad,"
the next monthly release of the Children's Braille Book Club, which is
celebrating
its 30th anniversary. Out front by the reception desk, visitors can thumb
through
copies of a Red Sox 2014 season schedule.
All told, the company has about 45 employees. Many are proofreaders whose
painstaking
tasks would perhaps rival those faced by the legendary copy editors and
fact-checkers
at The New Yorker magazine.
In one dimly lit office room, four proofreaders sat quietly at their
respective desks,
each scanning Braille proof sheets with their fingertips. Filling the
shelves of
two bookcases were all 72 volumes of Webster's Unabridged Dictionary.
Most of the press' revenue comes from various types of Braille material. The
firm
also raises about 30 percent of its operating budget through fund-raising,
said MacDonald,
a large chunk of which comes from its annual A Million Laughs for Literacy
gala,
headlined in recent years by comedians including Jay Leno, Lily Tomlin, and
Dana
Carvey.
Last fiscal year, the nonprofit posted nearly $4?million in operating
revenue.
In addition to its commissioned work, the company donates some of its
materials to
advocacy groups, many in Third World countries.
"Sometimes [the press sends] inventory that isn't moving," explained
MacDonald. "They
don't ask for specific titles. They're starving for material."
The Xavier Society paid about $1,400 per copy to produce "The New American
Bible,''
says Margaret O'Brien, the organization's operations manager. The books are
given
away to families with a certified sightless person in the household.
"There was a waiting list of people who were interested" after the initial
printing
ran out, O'Brien said in an interview. "We have people all over the country,
clients
who've been with us for many years." In June, the National Braille Press
will be
honored at the annual Xavier Awards dinner in New York.
Businesswise the press is holding its own, said MacDonald. The company was
in the
red when he arrived six years ago; he has since made adjustments to get it
in the
black, "and I don't mean a lot in the black."
NBP has successfully weathered both the economic woes that affected all
nonprofits
in recent years and the declining demand for Braille. The mainstreaming of
blind
children into public schools, which began in earnest in the 1970s, served an
undeniable
social benefit, said MacDonald, but it also hurt Braille literacy.
"The literacy rates for blind students went from 50-60 percent to about 12
percent
today," he said. Meanwhile, with technological advances such as talking
books and
screen-reader software, students were being told they would no longer need
to read
Braille.
"We know today that was a big mistake," said MacDonald. Seventy-four percent
of blind
adults are unemployed, he said. Of those who do have jobs, the vast majority
are
Braille readers.
"There's such a strong correlation,'' he said. "Investing in kids
understanding Braille
is an investment in them becoming taxpayers, ultimately. That's a big deal."
NBP production relies on two archaic-looking plate-embossing devices located
in a
small room on the second floor. With their boxy particle-board frames and
switchplates
covered in old duct tape, they look like something out of the earliest days
of punch-card
computer technology.
The company runs two kinds of presses in the basement - three Heidelberg
printing
presses modified for Braille production, which are the industrial warhorses,
and
the more modern-looking electronic embosser, which is essentially an
oversize computer
printer for Braille.
Most of the press's revenue comes from its traditional printing business,
but it
faces some pressure to adapt to the digital age. Readers of traditional
paper Braille
publications face limited choices and problems of access to material. Newer
technologies
that can convert regular text into Braille for individual readers hold great
promise.
"The overall intent of the mission is the same," said MacDonald, who came to
NBP
after years at the New England Aquarium and a stint with the Audubon Society
of New
Hampshire. "What's different is the technology."
Refreshable Braille displays (devices with round-tipped pins that rise and
fall to
form Braille letters) have enabled the sightless to read text from a
computer monitor
for about 25 years, he said. But they've always been pricey, running into
the thousands
of dollars. NBP is working on developing a cheaper prototype, as well as
technology
that would allow users to read tactile graphics, such as maps and charts.
"Better mousetrap, basically," said MacDonald. "Our production of paper
Braille is
starting to decline. We need to go into the e-Braille world." Yet he thinks
the Braille
printing industry may have hit its "trough."
"Globally, we're a small community. It's an uphill battle, but I do think it's
getting
better."
Though he was unaware of the NBP's work before he was invited to interview
at the
company, he grew up with a grandmother who lost her eyesight in the 1918
Spanish
flu pandemic.
She was a Christian Scientist from Hawaii, "always reading Scripture in
Braille,"
MacDonald recalled. When he traveled into Boston to interview for the
president's
position at the NBP, he passed the Christian Science Plaza on his way.
"My goodness," he thought. "That's good karma."
James Sullivan can be reached at
jamesgsullivan at gmail.com
.. Follow him on Twitter
@sullivanjames