By Catherine Durivage, Director, Minnesota Braille and Talking Book Library

(Editor’s Note:  This presentation was given at the Annual Convention of the National Federation of the Blind of Minnesota on October 24, 2009.)

Hello.  As Jennifer mentioned, I am Catherine Durivage, Director of the Minnesota Braille and Talking Book Library.  Thank you for extending an invitation to me to speak at your annual conference again this year.  I celebrated my ten-year anniversary in this position in July.  It seems like yesterday that I had just arrived here in Minnesota to start a new job.  Time has definitely flown by!

When I spoke to you last year at this time we were facing some serious budget and service challenges.  We had been down four full-time staff positions for a while, had already cut telephone hours, and were considering other service cutbacks.  In January of this year, our Customer Service Specialist left for another position and another staff person went on medical leave for 5 months.  This meant we were operating with six less people.  We were forced to suspend our local recording program because staff had to be reallocated to other areas.  This affected our recording of the Minnesota Conservation Volunteer and Minnesota History magazines and other Minnesota-related materials.

To help us out during this difficult period, staff from the State Library Services office in Roseville took turns coming to the library to ensure that we were able to send out materials and provide other much-needed services.  We could not have maintained services without their help.  Many of you expressed your concerns to us personally and to your legislators about these staff and service cutbacks.  We are deeply grateful for all of your support and understanding.

As of this month, we have been able to hire two temporary employees even though there is still a hiring freeze.  I am grateful to the Minnesota Department of Education for their support in allowing us to fill some of our open positions.  One of the new employees helps in our circulation area and the other one works in Customer Service assisting patrons who contact the library.  We are extremely pleased to have the additional staff, but we continue to struggle to provide the level of service you have come to expect.  We have yet to resume our local recording program and our telephone hours remain 9:00 a.m. to 4:00 p.m. Monday through Friday.  Many of the candidates contacted about the two temporary positions were looking for a permanent full-time job, so we know we must work toward obtaining permanent positions, otherwise we will not be able to increase our telephone hours, resume our local recording program, and expand services.  As the legislative session gears up in February, I know we can count on your continued support and advocacy for this service.

At this time last year, I also spoke about the transition to digital that was 10 or more years in the making.  Well, it is here.  In conjunction with State Services for the Blind the first digital players were sent out in August and as of yesterday, over 150 players have been sent to patrons.  Veterans are the first recipients of the new players and we have over 200 veterans on our waiting list that have yet to receive the new machines.  After veterans, individuals 100 years or older will receive the players.  There are 69 active 100+ year olds that use this service, of which 20 have indicated their interest in receiving the new machines.  Overall, including veterans and 100+ year olds, there are over 800 people on our digital player waiting list.  If you have not yet added your name to the waiting list and want to, please contact the library.  Machines are distributed to states on a monthly basis and our allotment will be around 230 per month, so we hope that everyone on our waiting list will have a player within the next 4-6 months.

We contact every person on our waiting list prior to sending out a player.  We call, email or send them a letter inquiring about their interest in the digital player.  Some people have decided to forego receiving a player when their name comes up on the list, so we think it best to make the contact ahead of time.  And now that some of our patrons will be heading to different (that is, warmer) climates, we don’t want to send a player to someone here in Minnesota when they may already have left the state.

Because our collection of digital titles is small we are limiting the number of digital books sent by the library to two at a time and letting our computer system select books based on your reading interests.  However, for those of you that have a computer and access to the Internet you can register to use NLS BARD and download additional books and magazines that can be played on the new players.  Plus there are five other commercially available players that will play NLS’ digital audio books.  Those are the Victor Reader Stream from Humanware, the Levelstar Icon from LevelStar, Inc., the Braille Plus Mobile Manager from American Printing House for the Blind, the BookSense from G.W. Micro, and the Plextalk Pocket PTP1 from PLEXTALK.  Currently over 150 people have registered to download books and magazines on NLS BARD.  Recently, NLS upgraded their player’s software to allow for the option of playing more than one book downloaded to a cartridge or USB flash memory stick.  I know this may sound very technical to those of you that may not use a computer or the Internet, so I want to reassure you that you can still simply order books like you do now and receive them in the mail.  If you want to do your own downloading, well, that is an option, but it is not required in order to receive the new digital books.

Many people have asked about keeping their cassette players.  We strongly recommend keeping your cassette player since it will be a while before our collection of digital titles will be sufficient in quantity.  New cassette books will continue to be available through the end of 2010.  Beginning in 2011 new books will only be produced on digital cartridges.  However, we will maintain our collection of cassette books as they are a viable format.

If you find that you are not using your cassette player or it is not working, please return it.  There is a waiting list for cassette players, so if you don’t use the one you have, please return it to the Communication Center, State Services for the Blind, in Saint Paul.

Available digital books will be listed beginning with the November/December issue of Talking Book Topics.  Digital books will have the letters DB listed before the book number.  Cassette books use the prefix RC.  Both cassettes and digital books will share the same book number.  The prefix, DB or RC, will let you know in what format a book is available. 

We have had nothing but positive comments about the new players.  People have called or emailed us specifically to express their joy in receiving the new machines.  There have been very few questions about their operation.  I have been to Bemidji, Shakopee, Minneapolis, Duluth and Virginia in the last couple of months to demo the new players and the response has been very favorable.  NLS took their time to develop a sturdy, easy-to-use player and so far it has been a winner.

Because of our staff constraints, we put on hold converting our audio recording equipment from analog to digital.  This will still be a future project.  However, we were able to purchase blank cartridges and shipping containers that will allow us to produce copies of digital titles to supplement books in our collection. 

In other news, we just recently converted to a new telephone system and the changeover was seamless as far as we can tell.  Our main contact numbers remain the same including our toll-free number, so you will not have to worry about learning new telephone numbers.  In fact, the switchover occurred Thursday of this week and so far so good.

Our biggest challenges over the next year will be the ongoing transition to digital and working on increasing our funding level.  I know we are still in a very difficult economic time, but I remain positive that with the support of your group and others, we can meet and overcome these challenges.  

It has been a pleasure being here today.  If there is time, I entertain questions.

Thank you.