Creator: Pavel Kuljuk
Printed: 2025/04/30
Publication Sort: Informative
Subject: Incapacity Publications – Publications Listing
Web page Content material: Synopsis – Introduction – Major
Synopsis: Underestimating the significance of literature in folks’s lives hinders the distribution of free audiobooks among the many blind. Yearly, at the least 500,000 new books are printed in america. Considering self-published authors, the full variety of new books is 2-4 million every year. Nonetheless, the biggest free audiobook database incorporates solely 120,000 books.
Introduction
Entry to Audiobooks for the Blind Is Poor
There are about 1 million blind folks in america (20/200 imaginative and prescient or worse). One other 11.4 million folks have poor imaginative and prescient. The variety of these folks is continually rising. By 2050, the full variety of blind and other people with poor imaginative and prescient will improve to 24.4 million folks. (1) All of those folks want particular alternatives. Considered one of these alternatives is entry to literature. Audio books are probably the most optimum method to remedy this downside. Nonetheless, entry to audio books is just not a fundamental and obligatory service for the blind. Due to this fact, the alternatives for the disabled on this space are inadequate.
Focus
Yearly, at the least 500,000 new books are printed in america. Considering self-published authors, the full variety of new books is 2-4 million every year. (2) Nonetheless, the biggest free audiobook database incorporates solely 120,000 books. (3) These audiobooks are supplied by the Braille Institute with the Nationwide Library Service (NLS). Different free audiobook databases are tens of instances smaller. (4) And most audiobook distribution tasks work on a paid foundation. In such tasks, the chance to obtain free audiobooks is proscribed to a trial interval. After that, that you must pay for a subscription. And this service prices tens of {dollars} a month. (5)
The best way to Enhance Entry to Free Audiobooks
As we will see, the prevailing free choice of audiobooks is hardly passable. Due to this fact, the blind attempt to develop their capabilities by counting on their very own strengths. There are a lot of messages in social networks through which disabled folks share their experiences in accessing free audiobooks. (6) Listed below are some suggestions from social networks on how one can enhance entry to free audiobooks:
1. Search YouTube. This video internet hosting website has many free audiobooks from the classical literature style. These books are usually not protected by copyright.
2. Use apps comparable to u/Voice Aloud Reader or ElevenLabs reader to open an ePub, PDF, doc, or another textual content file in there and hear that approach.
3. Assist from companies for the blind. In some states, these companies present help to folks with disabilities to entry excessive know-how that enables them to search out and browse free audiobooks.
You can even ask a detailed individual with good eyesight to create a free audiobook for you. All you want is a cell phone with a voice recorder and a web-based Google translator. I personally used this methodology to create an audiobook for my blind good friend. I copied the textual content of the guide, 5 thousand letters every, into the net Google translator. (7) Then I clicked on the choice for audio studying of the textual content within the on-line translator. I recorded the textual content learn by the robotic on the cellphone’s voice recorder. Sure. It is a primitive however accessible guide for listening. 12 pages of A4 textual content match right into a 30-minute audio file. This methodology doesn’t require downloading any purposes or particular technical data.
As well as, you should utilize the assistance of federal organizations to assist the blind. These organizations function inside the framework of the implementation of federal legal guidelines Individuals with Disabilities Act (ADA) and Digital Accessible Data System (DAISY) and EPUB. (8) For instance, the Nationwide Federation of the Blind is growing a “Middle of Excellence in Nonvisual Accessibility”. (9) The federation’s web site says that this middle is designed to “Enhance consciousness of accessibility and the instruments out there to blind customers.” By visiting a particular web page on the location, you could find lots of helpful details about rising the accessibility of applied sciences for the blind. And it will assist enhance the provision of free audiobooks.
What’s Lacking
Let’s be trustworthy. The principle downside of the impeding availability of audio books is the opinion about literature. Within the fashionable world, books have misplaced their which means. Now a guide is among the types of leisure however a necessity. Due to this fact, there are specialised applications for offering free canes “Free White Cane Program” (10) or free writing devices “Free Slate and Stylus Program” (11) for the blind. However there isn’t a particular program for creating and distributing free audio books for the blind.
Till the angle in direction of literature modifications, audiobooks will probably be of restricted entry to the blind. Within the present scenario, writers do little or no to popularize books. It might be excellent if writers began creating free audio copies of their books and began offering these books free of charge to the blind. It is a good factor that popularizes literature and helps the disabled reside. I’m a author and I already do that. And also you?
Test Listing
1) https://www.nih.gov/news-events/news-releases/visual-impairment-blindness-cases-us-expected-double-2050
2) https://www.tonerbuzz.com/weblog/how-many-books-are-published-each-year/
3) https://www.brailleinstitute.org/about-us/information/how-to-get-free-audio-books-for-the-blind-and-visually-impaired/
4) https://librivox.org/
5) https://www.audible.com/ep/memberbenefits
6) https://www.reddit.com/r/Blind/feedback/1gwz9vz/audiobooks_for_the_blind/
7) https://translate.google.com
8) https://www.accessibility.com/weblog/making-audiobooks-accessible
9) https://nfb.org/programs-services/center-excellence-nonvisual-access
10) https://nfb.org/programs-services/free-white-cane-program
11) https://nfb.org/programs-services/center-excellence-nonvisual-access
Creator Credentials: Pavel Kuljuk’s articles and poems are printed in Australia, North America, and Europe. In recent times, he has been continuously collaborating with Australian Rural & Regional Information (Australia), Purple Hook Every day Catch and OpEd Information (USA), and Disabled World (Canada). Kuliuk’s particular person publications are in Forbes (Kazakhstan), Rural 21 (Germany), London Loves Enterprise (UK), Karrep (India), RealClearDefense (RCD), Change Hyperlinks, Every day Caller (USA), and plenty of others. Discover Pavels’ full biography for complete insights into his background, experience, and accomplishments.
Citing and References
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Cite This Web page: Pavel Kuljuk. (2025, April 30). An Surprising Impediment to Free Audiobooks for The Blind. Disabled World (DW). Retrieved Could 17, 2025 from www.disabled-world.com/incapacity/publications/obtaining-audiobooks.php
Permalink: An Surprising Impediment to Free Audiobooks for The Blind: Underestimating the significance of literature in folks’s lives hinders the distribution of free audiobooks among the many blind.
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