Newsletter of the
Nebraska Library Commission
Talking Book & Braille Service
October 1997
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| TBBS Staff and Advisory Committee Travel the Highways of Nebraska | |
Again this spring and summer, the Talking Book and Braille Service (TBBS) Advisory Committee hosted informational meetings across the state. Combining attendance and mileage, we visited one borrower for every seven miles spent on the road. A worthy investment for all.
Staff and Advisory Committee members traveled to West Omaha, McCook and Ainsworth. Approximately 120 borrowers, their family members, and other interested parties took advantage of the opportunity to meet library staff, find out more about library service, and ask questions. Staff and Advisory Committee members, in turn, heard borrowers' comments about our library and its service.
The May 21 meeting at Omaha's Jewish Community Center drew a small crowd of twenty. Seventy-three individuals attended the July 14 meeting at McCook's Highland Park Retirement Center. Twenty-eight folks met with staff and Advisory Committee members at the Ainsworth Community Senior Center on July 15.
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| Worldwide Web Offers Additional Access to Ta lking Book Program | |
Have a question about talking book service? Wondering if the National Library Service (NLS) is recording the latest novel? Give us a call. Drop us line. Or, those of you with access to the Worldwide Web can visit our website: /tbbs/tbbs1.html.
We've included links to comprehensive catalogs from NLS and other libraries. There are pages describing many aspects of talking book service from eligibility requirements to service to schools. You can even send us electronic mail right from our website.
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| National Magazine Program Grows By Twenty-Five | |
Beginning in January 1998, the National Library Service for the Blind and Physically Handicapped (NLS) expands its magazine program adding eleven braille and fourteen audio magazines. The changes are a result of a year of work by two national advisory committees and a public opinion research firm. These new magazines are either additions or substitutions to the existing program and represent the first major modification of the magazine program since 1978. The order form on page 7 lists the new magazines by format.
Remember, you will not begin to receive the new NLS magazines until after January 1998.
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Readers Welcome Taste of Home |
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In response to the item in our summer newsletter, readers were overwhelmingly positive about the addition of Taste of Home Country Cooking to our cassette magazine program. So, we placed our order with the organization that produces the cassette edition. As yet, we've received no word when the first issue will arrive. To have Taste of Home on your cassette magazine menu as soon as it is available, just mark the order form on page 7.
Taste of Home Country Cooking is published six times a year. Much of the content is generated by readers - from brief reports of regional food-related activities to stories about food, the people who cook it, and the people who love it. But most of all Taste of Home is recipes, recipes, recipes.
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Blue & Yellow Make... Talking Book Info Easy to Find |
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Eye care professionals and residential care facilities throughout the state are now better equipped to help their blind, visually impaired, and physically handicapped customers enjoy reading. This summer, the Talking Book and Braille Service mailed ready-to-file information packets to the 350 optometrists and ophthal- mologists and the directors of 250 residential care facilities licensed in the state.
Each packet is a colored file folder (yellow or blue) with its tab pre-labeled "Talking Book and Braille Service." Contents describe talking book service, eligibility, the application process, and successful use of talking books. A letter of introduction accompanied each packet.
These mailings are intended to increase the likelihood that Nebraskans who experience blindness, visual impairment or other physical disability will receive timely referral to the Talking Book and Braille Service. The ready- to-file format of the packets has proven successful in "school packets" whose red file folders were first distributed to schools in the 1995-96 school year.
Information packets are also available to other medical professionals. If you think your doctors (or other health professionals) would be good sources of referral to our service, let us know their names and addresses. We'll be pleased to send them information packets. Using your name in the letter of introduction will stress the importance of the information, so please remember to tell us who you are, too. To request packets, direct your calls or letters to Diane Wells.
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| Annual Renewal of Readers Digest and Newsweek Causes Confusion | |
American Printing House for the Blind (APH) sends annual renewal letters to readers receiving Readers Digest or Newsweek on cassette. You MUST RETURN THE LETTER to APH in order to continue receiving the magazine (a return envelope is included). The APH letter also indicates that a contribution is welcome.
However, you DO NOT need to send money in order to continue your free subscription.
This renewal process involves only Readers Digest and Newsweek on cassette. Subscriptions to other magazines continue from year to year without need for renewal.
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Call Anytime: 471-4038 or 800-742-7691 |
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It's midnight. You remember that you intended to call in a list of books or an address change. Just pickup the phone and dial. Our answering machine will pass your message along to us, and we'll get right on it - providing that you've remembered to include your name.
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| Advisory Committee Plans Fall Meeting | |
Plans are underway for the next meeting of the TBBS Advisory Committee. Agenda items will include: additions to the TBBS website, local magazine production changes, and a proposed borrower satisfaction survey. The meeting will be held in Lincoln in late October or early November. The meeting is open to the public. Call for more information.
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| Indexing of Capper's Expanded | |
Our initial effort to tone-index the four major sections of Capper's - Kate Marchbanks, the continuing story, recurring columns, and news items - was well received. Several readers wrote to express their appreciation ... and to request more tones. Some included detailed suggestions for placement of the additional tones.
Because many of the articles in Capper's are very short, it is impossible to index each one. The tones would all run together in fast-forward or rewind. However, it is possible to expand the indexing. From now on, the majority of articles, features, and columns in Capper's will each be preceded by an index tone.
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| Insurance Department Offers Help | |
Nebraska Health Insurance Information, Counseling, and Assistance Program (NICA) volunteers assist Nebraskans over age 65 with Medicare, supplemental insurance, Medicaid and long-term care insurance.
All NICA services and literature are free. NICA does not provide or sell insurance policies or products.
To find out if a NICA volunteer lives in your community, call the Department of Insurance at (402) 471-2201 and ask for the NICA program.
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| Announcing New Additions to the NE Collection | |
Books of Nebraska ...
Death in the Fog
NE 682 2 cassettes
by Mignon G. Eberhart
Originally published in 1933, this book is one of Eberhart's most chilling
mysteries. Fog and sleet make driving hazardous in the Chicago traffic.
Katie Warren momentarily stops her car on Michigan Boulevard where a
shrouded voice speaks to her ominously. When she eventually reaches Aunt
Mina's gloomy mansion something terrible happens. Narrated by Alice Timm.
Hawk Flies Above
NE 642 2 cassettes
by Lisa Dale Norton
Wounded by years of to-and-fro travel, heavy drinking, and wandering
aimlessly through a succession of cities and apartments, the author returns
to her childhood home in the Nebraska Sandhills. The book captures an
idyllic time and place -- seen first through the dreaming eyes of a child
and then through the experienced eyes of the woman who has come home to
heal herself. Narrated by Tami Works.
A Life
NE 677 1 cassette
by Wright Morris
Floyd Warner, 82, has driven from California to his childhood home in
Nebraska. There he confronts the smoldering remains of his late sister's
house and the realization that he is now completely alone. He sets out
once again, this time to find his first adult home, a dusty sheep farm in
the Southwest. There he prepares to meet the fate that ultimately awaits
us all. Narrated by Mike Wight.
Monogamy
NE 641 2 cassettes
by Marly Swick
Winner of the 1990 "Iowa Short Fiction Award," this book of short stories
portrays family members as they grapple with life's difficulties. Though
injured, they desire and sometimes achieve wholeness once again. Narrated
by Marjory Gloe.
A Storyteller's Hometown
NE 547 2 cassettes
by Duane Hutchinson
Stories about the people who live in Elgin, Nebraska. Residents are seen
not at their Sunday best, but rather as humorous, tragic and sometimes
noble individuals. The author relates these stories in order to preserve
a part of his rich hometown heritage. Narrated by Donalee Heier.
Fiction ...
Call Home the Heart
NE 703 3 cassettes
by Jessica Stirling
This second trilogy volume examines the lives and loves of the Stalker
family after the death of their menfolk in a mining disaster. Set in a
small village in Victorian Scotland. Some strong language. Recorded by
NLS. Narrated by Gilbert Livingston.
The Dark Pasture
NE 704 3 cassettes
by Jessica Stirling
This third trilogy volume concerns the lives and fortunes of a Scots mining
and farming clan, the Stalkers, as they are involved in the outbreak of a
miner's strike. When illegitimate son Neill accidentally kills a constable
in a melee with strikers, he appeals to the lawyer-father he has never
seen for help. Some strong language. Recorded by NLS. Narrated by Jill
Tanner.
Strathmore
NE 702 2 cassettes
by Jessica Stirling
This first trilogy volume is set in 1875. A beautiful headstrong young
woman in a Scottish mining town finds herself torn between loyalty to her
family and class and her forbidden love for the married owner of the mines.
Recorded by NLS. Narrated by Dale Carter.
Z for Zachariah
NE 701 3 cassettes
by Sally Conly
The diary of Ann Burden, who thinks she is the only survivor of nuclear war.
Then, a man with a radiation-proof suit comes into the valley. Though John
Loomis seems pleasant enough at first, his arrival soon brings disaster,
uncertainty, loneliness, and terror for Ann. For high school and adult
readers. Recorded by NLS. Narrated by Mitzi Friedlander.
Radio Dramas ...
Help Wanted
NE 709 1 cassette
by Louis Pelletier
In this crime comedy, the rich make easy pickings for an unscrupulous
agency which provides live-in help. Dramatized by Blue Ridge Radio
Players. Recorded at 17/8 inches per second.
Wyatt's Wife
NE 708 1 cassette
by Hendrik Booraem
This original western tells the true story of a fascinating woman who
married Wyatt Earp. Dramatized by the Blue Ridge Radio Players. Recorded
at 17/8 inches per second.
Religious & Inspirational ...
Man In Black
NE 705 3 cassettes
by Johnny Cash
The country-music singer tells his own story, beginning with his childhood
in Arkansas, he realistically recounts his seven nightmarish years of drug
addiction, the cure, his marriage to June Carter, and his new-found faith
in god. Recorded by NLS. Narrated by Jim Walton.
Western and Pioneer ...
Forlorn River
NE 700 2 cassettes
by Zane Grey
Story of the lawless days of cattle thieves and the exciting pursuit and
capture of wild horses. A courageous loner must rescue his woman and
clear his name in a trumped-up charge of cattle-rustling. Recorded by
NLS. Narrated by Buckley Kozlow.
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Order Listing |
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To order the items described in this issue:
e-mail;
call, 800-742-7691; or write, Nebraska Library Commission Talking
Book and Braille Service, 1200 N Street, Suite 120, Lincoln, NE 68508-2023.
Be sure to include your name, address, city, state, zipcode, and
telephone number in all correspondence.