Talking Books / Special Needs Library

In the main library at 303 North Laura St. there is a complete section for the people who need special equipment to read. This section is in the Conference Level downstairs of Main Library. 

There are great big collection of books on cassette includes mysteries, westerns, romances, biographies, travel, current events, how-to, children's and young adult books, and even books in foreign languages.

Also, there is a collection of movies in VHS or DVD format with narration during pauses in the dialogue for people with visual impairments.

Special Needs Library has many technologies to assist the visually or hearing impaired. Foe example, for the visually disable people are JAWS, OpenBook, Kurzweil3000, Zoomtext, and VideoEye. These are screen-readers or programs to make the screen clearer for people with low vision.

For the hearing impaired there is Sorenson Video Relay System, which is for people who want to use American Sign Language. 

Digital player
(Picture from Jacksonville taking library blog)

Talking book cassette
(Picture from Jacksonville taking library blog)

Some of the activities the Special Needs Library do is showing a movie in Closed Caption for the deaf, hearing impaired, their friends and family on the first Thursday of each month at 10:30 a.m. Also, on the third Friday of each month at 10:00 a.m. the Special Needs Library show a Described Movie program for the blind, visually disable and senior citizens.

For more information visit the Talking Books / Special Needs Library website at:

http://jpl.coj.net/lib/talkingbooks.html 

And their blog at:

http://jaxtbl-coea.blogspot.com/