Library abroad: Library access for blind in danger

The Canadian National Institute for the Blind (CNIB) is seeking federal backing in providing library services to the blind and visually impaired Canadians.

After 90 years of providing library resources to the blind and visually impaired, the CNIB has recently announced it will no longer operate library services as a charitable entity and continue to pay $10 million annually to provide braille and accessible audio materials to libraries.

Canada is the only G-8 country that does not publicly fund any library services for people with vision loss.

CNIB wants the federal and provincial governments and the Northwest Territories to go into partnership with them to provide library services for the blind and visually impaired. Some provinces have already committed funding. These include Ontario, Alberta and the Northwest Territories.

A spokesman from the British Columbia’s Ministry of Education claims that the government recognizes the valuable services that CNIB has provided to blind and partially sighted Canadians and adds that they have partnered with this long-standing charity on specific programs. B.C.’s public libraries make significant investments in collections of large-print and audio books as well as in services to the visually impaired, which include spending more than $3 million annually on digital collections that can be accessed through the use of text-to-speech software.

However CNIB representatives consider this financial aid “minuscule” compared to the annual $10 million the CNIB contributes to libraries nationwide.