Audio Books for The Blind

Posted: 06/17/08 by Victor

Since the inception of audio books on the market, a whole new arena of opportunities have opened up to those that could not physically read. Instead of publishing braille books, audio books for the blind are a much less expensive way of providing entertainment to those that have a tougher time finding it.

So, you might ask, how many could this possibly affect? Think about this: there are over 10 million people that are visually impaired in the United States (alone). Many of these people are also students, as well as business enterprise opportunists. Imagine how difficult it would be to learn from books in the old fashion way, using Braille? Or having it computer read via OCR technology, and even via personal readers. Now that's all history with the proliferation of audio books for the blind available via Tapes, CDs, and now the incredibly popular: digital audio books via download.

Let's take an example. Let's say a student needs to read Hamlet for a class assignment. Although schools do adjust (minimally in most cases) for impaired people, this individual can jump online (with the help of digital readers), locate an audio book site such as Audible.com, locate the audio book, and download it within minutes to either their computer or MP3 player (such as iPod). What's there to do after these simple steps, except to listen to the book itself!!

Having said all of this, it is still an unfortunate aspect of societies all over the world (including the US) that we’re slow in implementing accommodations for not only visually impaired people, but for all other handicapped people in the world. If you have trouble finding audio books for the blind (or sites that provide audio books for the blind), then you’re not the only one. Check out this earlier petition to get Audible.com to work on their accessibility issues: http://www.petitiononline.com/bviacu/petition.html. There's good news though; Audible.com is one of those rare companies that DO listen, as a case in point.

With the rise in technology, the limitations of entertainment are slowly being erased, allowing handicapped people from all over the world to begin enjoying life that is on par with non-handicapped people. If you’re looking for audio books for the blind, then check out Audible.com for your entertainment needs!