In an effort to promote and encourage reading among South Africans of all ages and groups, the South African Library for the Blind (SAL B) will be participating in the first National Book Week to be held in Johannesburg between 10 and 13 September.
In an effort to promote and encourage reading among South Africans of all ages and groups, the South African Library for the Blind (SAL B) will be participating in the first National Book Week to be held in Johannesburg between 10 and 13 September.
SAL B Marketing Assistant, Louise Wolmarans said that the purpose of attending this event “will be to try to level the field between blind people and those people who have sight and can read”.
The event, which will take place at the Museum Africa in Newtown, is a joint initiative of the South African Book Development Council (SABDC) and the Department of Arts and Culture (DAC).
According to Wolmarans, the library’s main objective will be to create awareness through their exhibitions.
These will include demonstrations of their tactile books that are used to introduce babies and toddlers to books.
Wolmarans said that the tactile books are very helpful for both sighted and unsighted children as the soft picture books are designed to help pre-school children acquaint themselves with Braille and to help them to develop a love for books.
“The books are sewn with different items that the children can either identify if they are sighted or they can feel if they are blind,” she said.
The library will also have an activity tent where they will run a Braille game that can be used by both sighted and blind people.
The SAL B slogan, “We are all on the same page,” seeks to illustrate that blind people have the same capabilities as sighted people and should not be treated differently.
“People get nervous around blind people and don’t know how to react,” said Wolmarans. “The misconception that people have about blind people is that they cannot perform the same job tasks as sighted people but if they are equipped with the right training they can overcome this”.
SAL B is the only library for the blind in the country and through their non-profit national library service Blindlib, provide audio and Braille books and magazines to all blind and print disabled readers in seven South African languages.
The languages are English, Afrikaans, Xhosa, Zulu, Northern and Southern Sotho and Tswana. The reading material, which is recorded on a CD, is provided free of charge to registered members.
“We convert normal books into audio and we always try to keep up with the latest book releases,” said Wolmarans.
“The problem is copyright because sometimes publishers can be difficult when it comes to giving us permission to use their material.”
Apart from their website, which is user friendly for visually impaired people, the libraries have created a Facebook page so that their members can communicate with them.
They also use radio commercials to access people living in rural areas. “We hope to use the National Book Week to highlight that blind people are normal and are just as capable as people with eye-sight,” said Wolmarans.
