Since 1900, the staff and volunteers of the Xavier Society for the Blind (XSB) have offered a wide range of Catholic reading and listening materials so that their clients may nourish their inner life with God’s Saving Word, participate more actively in parish life, develop their God-given potential, and thereby inspire others by their example.

It’s been doing this for so long because of its history of adopting and adapting new technology to further its mission. XSB’s centennial in 2000 was a time to celebrate the past 100 years of success but also a time to look to the future and to new technology to more effectively serve those who are blind or visually impaired.

Optical Braille Recognition

Sighted XSB volunteers and staff members no longer need to learn Braille thanks to one recent acquisition: Optical Braille Recognition (OBR) software, which allows a scanned page of Braille to be displayed in regular print on a computer monitor. We can reverse the process as well: an operator can type in a letter, say, and then send it to a Braille embosser that literally punches out as many Braille copies as needed.

Learning how to use this new Braille-related computer equipment and special software takes time and effort, but for most sighted people it’s easier than learning how to read and manually emboss Braille!

Evelyn Stroligo handles one of XSB’s latest “toys,” a scanner/computer combination that translates printed textbooks into pages of Braille, 600 pages per hour. Operators no longer have to learn Braille and then punch it out on a Braille printer.

Text on Demand

One of XSB’s ongoing tasks is keeping pace with revisions of religion textbooks. Rather than scanning in, printing, and binding a stack of Braille copies of a new book, we stop short after the scanning step, saving it in electronic format. Then, once a request comes in, the staff uses XSB’s new high-speed embosser, 600 pages of Braille per hour, to print a single hard copy that goes out on library loan to a blind student.

“This embosser makes our Braille output go so much faster,” says Cecilia Fernandez, who manages XSB’s Large Print and Braille Transcription department. “It’s a great time saver.”

As any revisions come in, we scan just the revised pages and slip them into this electronic bank, so books going out will be the latest edition.

When a request for a book we have not yet transcribed comes in, it can take a few months to complete the transcription, because only two people at XSB have the necessary textbook editing skills. This step takes time and judgment, as traditional religious texts for youngsters contain a high visual content — pictures and drawings that cannot be reproduced. But allies in this whole process are the sighted parents and teachers who explain to the blind youngster what was omitted. They become partners with XSB as together they strengthen the bonds of faith and Christ’s love with those who are precious in God’s sight.

That copy of America magazine will end up on cassette and in the hands of an XSB client, thanks to volunteer readers such as Bill Martin, who started reading for the organization in 1968 and has been going at it since.

Interpoint Braille

All of XSB’s computer-driven Braille embossers create Interpoint Braille, Braille on the front and back of any one page. The embossers use tiny hammers to pound dots into each side of the heavy-weight paper simultaneously. The hammers are, of course, offset to prevent those on one side of the page from striking what is being hammered on the other side. Interpoint Braille is a technological marvel that saves paper, conserves library shelf space, and makes the volumes easier for us, the post office, and the reader to handle.

Digital Recordings

When XSB pioneered the use of the audiocassette format for talking books for the blind in , volunteers Dorothy Fitzpatrick and Bill Martin began recording at XSB. Thirty-five years later, these two recording-studio veterans are still at it, our volunteers with the longest tenure.

“Reading for the blind has given me great pleasure, knowing I’m using the gift of good speaking for the enjoyment of the visually impaired,” says Bill.

Dorothy and Bill and their colleagues in the recording booths probably will not notice any difference as they speak into the microphone, but XSB will be replacing the last of its analog recording devices with more-versatile digital recording equipment by the end of 2004.

Using digital audio, XSB recently synchronized separate recordings of four volunteers praying the rosary and blended their voices into a group. XSB is offering this recording of the rosary, which includes the new Mysteries of Light by Pope John Paul II, and another popular item, its Manual of Prayers and Devotions, on audiocassette and, for the first time, an audio CD, our most recent technological advance.

Tom Dowd handles XSB’s new digital recording equipment that will create cassette recordings of Catholic Digest, Our Sunday Visitor, and, of course, Company.

Now on CD

The Lavelle Fund for the Blind recently financed an XSB project to determine our client preference for audio CDs instead of audiocassettes. We purchased stacks of blank CDs and mailers and two CD publishers with computers. Each of these publishers duplicates audio data onto 25 CDs at a crack, even printing labels right on the CDs, all in about two hours! So far, about one in four XSB clients have been requesting the Rosary or the Manual of Prayers on CD, and our guess is that this number will grow.

In late our audio CD offerings will be expanded to include the XSB’s master catalog for the library and a soon-to-be-completed history of the first 100 years of XSB in formats for our blind clients and in regular print for sighted friends and benefactors.

Rob Nealon inspects one of 25 audio CDs this machine creates in under two hours. “Praying the Rosary” goes to XSB clients with text-to-voice computer software. As client interest in audio CDs increases, more selections will be in this format.

For the Future

Once XSB finishes tallying and analyzing the thousands of responses to a recent client survey, XSB will have a clearer idea of what our clients would like to see in an XSB website. Such a site would be user-friendly for the blind and visually impaired. At the outset it will feature the XSB informational brochure, application forms, and the bi-monthly newsletter, all of which a client may print out or play on computers with text-to-speech programs.

Another web possibility is a link to XSB’s library catalog to facilitate searches and library loans. Still another is offering clients the chance to download library books. That will require XSB negotiating agreements with copyright holders, but there are a lot of possibilities out there, waiting to be tried.

Fr. Al Caruana, SJ, has been Xavier Society for the Blind’s executive director since 1995.