Author: Matthew Horspool

Personal stories from Braille users around the world and how this very simple invention of six little dots continues to transform lives.

Built around a game of Braille Scrabble, Emma Tracey presents a celebration of Braille, 200 years after it was invented. Emma, who’s been blind since birth, talks to others who love the six tiny dots: Geerat Vermeij, one of the world’s leading experts in molluscs; Yetnebersh Nigussie, an Ethiopian lawyer, who describes her blindness as ‘a lottery I won at the age of 5’; Sheri Wells-Jensen, a linguistics professor who’s been a linguistic consultant on Star Trek and is on the US advisory board for messaging extra-terrestrial intelligence; Japanese concert pianist, Nobuyuki Tsujii, who learnt to play using Braille music; and Emma’s friend and Scrabble partner, Ellie. And there’s a chance encounter with the most famous Braille user of them all, Stevie Wonder. But can Braille survive with the ever-increasing supply of tech that allows blind people to listen to, rather than feel, information?

Listen on BBC Sounds

Dear Customer,

We’re writing to provide an update regarding changes to the RNIB Personal Transcription Service, following the conclusion of our recent organisational-wide consultation.

As part of this consultation, we’ve carefully reviewed all service areas to identify where we need to do more, where we need to scale back and where we need to do things differently to help us focus on our aim of reaching many more people with sight loss through their eye care support journey.

Our aim continues to be ensuring RNIB is there for as many of the 2 million blind and partially sighted people in the UK as possible – a number that is expected to double by 2050 – whilst maintaining financial sustainability to remain available for as long as we’re needed. Additionally, there’s vital work ahead to create the societal changes necessary for lasting, positive improvements for blind and partially sighted people. These changes will enhance the delivery of support, ensuring continuity of care throughout individuals’ lives and addressing existing limitations in our reach.

Following a detailed consultation process and in response to suggestions from our teams, we’ve decided to continue offering Large Print on Demand, which represents over 50 per cent of our Personal Transcription work and is an expanding area of the service. This will now be managed differently, ensuring it remains sustainable and capable of meeting the growing demand.

The remaining aspects of the Personal Transcription Service will transition to a new provider, whose core business model specialises in transcription services. This change will involve a charged-for model, with RNIB subsidising part of the cost for a limited time to ease the transition for our customers. We appreciate how unsettling changes like these can be, and we are committed to ensuring a smooth transition and a positive customer experience.

The new provider is A2i Transcription Services, and has been chosen after careful consideration, due to their excellent reputation. You can contact A2i in the following ways:
Telephone: 01179 440044
Email: [email protected] Website: a2i.co.uk
Address: A2i Transcription Services, Unit 4 Montpelier Central, Station Road, Bristol BS6 5EE
You will need to identify yourself as a RNIB Personal Transcription Service user by quoting the code RNIBPT04/25.

We remain incredibly grateful to you, volunteers and RNIB staff for your unwavering support of the Personal Transcription Service over the years. Your commitment has been invaluable. As we move forward, RNIB is firmly focused on creating a greater, long-lasting impact for blind and partially sighted people across the UK. Our dedication to driving meaningful change and ensuring support for future generations remains at the heart of everything we do.

If you have any questions or concerns, please don’t hesitate to contact us. Thank you for your understanding.

Helen Atwere
Director of Operations
RNIB

After listening to feedback, we’ve reviewed our proposed changes to our personal transcription services and looked at ways that we can urge others to be accountable for providing accessible formats. However, we can’t expect society to change overnight.

For this reason, personal transcription will remain free of charge for eligible customers for the next year, with RNIB covering the costs incurred where the service is provided via an external provider, A2i, an organisation steeped in accessibility for more than 20 years.

We realise that RNIB no longer providing this service itself may be disappointing for some of our customers. But our long-term aim is to focus RNIB’s transcription services on addressing remaining gaps where work is not transcribed at its source.

This interim arrangement allows us the time needed to bring together interested parties to commit to developing a sustainable long-term solution.

By working together, we can ensure that the transcription needs are met appropriately by the relevant organisations and people have access to the information they need, when and how they want it. This collaborative approach recognises we can’t achieve this alone and reflects our dedication to creating solutions that meet evolving needs.

We will also continue to deliver Large Print on Demand, which accounts for over 50 percent of personal transcription work, to existing customers.

You’ll continue to place your orders through us via the RNIB Helpline and we’ll work with A2i to fulfil your order as quickly and efficiently as possible. We’re working through this process and will give you further updates on when we’re ready to take orders through the RNIB Helpline.

RNIB remains deeply committed to providing braille services. From RNIB Bookshare supporting accessible educational materials and textbooks, to our library collection with access to more than 11,000 braille books, RNIB Newsagent offering braille versions of popular magazines and newspapers and our music library holding one of the largest collections of accessible format music for blind and partially sighted musicians.

RNIB’s campaigning and advocacy teams will also continue to work tirelessly with different sectors – from health to education – to build understanding that they have a legal responsibility to provide their blind and partially sighted customers with written material in their preferred accessible format. We’ll continue to support people with sight loss to assert their legal rights to receive information in accessible formats.

More information on this will follow on how RNIB can support you to direct your personal transcription work back to the organisation who provided it and we will work with you closely on this.

The Braillists will be taking a break over Easter. We will still be checking emails during this time, but not as frequently as usual. The Braillists Forum will remain active and we will continue to moderate this as appropriate.

There will be no Tuesday evening sessions on 15 April, 22 April or 29 April. We will resume Tuesday evening operations on 6 May with Braille for Beginners, and a Braille Bar will follow on 13 May.

Book Club will break up on Thursday 17 April for a two-week holiday, resuming on Thursday 8 May.

We intend to take this opportunity to resume publication of the Braillecast podcast. Please stay subscribed for new episodes over the Easter break.

As part of its recent restructure, RNIB has taken the decision to outsource its Personal Transcription service for braille and audio to a commercial company. Following extensive campaigning over the past week, this service will be underwritten in full by RNIB for the next year.

The “Save Our Braille” campaign, which was instrumental in achieving this subsidy, is now seeking constructive dialogue with RNIB to ensure free personal braille transcription remains indefinitely. It can be found here: saveourbraille.wordpress.com

HumanWare is thrilled to announce that TactileView, the leading tactile creation suite, is now included with the Romeo 60 and Juliet 120 embossers! This exciting new add-on allows you to create high-quality tactile graphics with HumanWare embossers, providing you with more tools to enhance your work.

TactileView offers an intuitive, screen reader-compatible interface that makes creating both simple and complex tactile graphics effortless. Whether you’re designing tactile maps, math diagrams, or other graphics, this tool streamlines the process, saving you time and effort. Plus, with TactileView’s extensive graphic catalog, you can easily modify existing designs and seamlessly integrate them with Duxbury.

Read the full announcement

On behalf of APH I am pleased to announce the release of BrailleBlaster 3.0.1. This release deals with the issues relating to math causing errors in the previous version which lead to that release being withdrawn. This release can be obtained at the BrailleBlaster website.

Unfortunately for Mac users, APH still has no Mac build of BrailleBlaster 3.0.1, for now you will need to continue using BrailleBlaster 2.1.9, find an alternative build of BrailleBlaster or build from source.

As this release is only about fixing the math issue, there are no further release notes this time.

If you are a long-time follower of Sight and Sound across our various social channels, then you’ll know that we’ve had the hugely popular Hable One device in our portfolio for the last few years. Now we’re delighted to add the Hable Easy!

The Hable Easy is a small, easy-to-use device that helps people who find touchscreens hard to use. With just eight buttons, you can control your phone or tablet without complicated swiping or tapping. Each button has a specific job, so you can open apps, send messages, and even use voice commands with ease.

The Hable Easy makes using a smartphone or tablet simple and fun for everyone, and works with both VoiceOver and TalkBack. Just connect the Hable Easy to your phone or tablet with Bluetooth, and you’re ready to go! With just a press of a button, you can make calls, send messages, and enjoy music or videos.

Join us for this Webinar Wednesday event, when Hable’s Cofounder Freek van Welsenis will tell us all!

Register for the Hable Easy Webinar

Registration is now open for the summer term for the Braille And Tactile Skills courses at Adult Learning Lewisham, starting on 28 April 2025.

These courses take place on Mondays either between 10AM and 12:30PM or 1Pm and 3:30PM. Terms are eleven weeks long and are held at the Brockley Rise centre in South East London: 2 Brockley Rise, SE23 1PR

No previous knowledge of Braille is required, course fees are means tested  and many applicants receive free or discounted places depending on their income. We are a friendly and supportive group, and all learners work at their own pace towards their individual goals. We have lots of great group discussions about various topics related to visual impairment and use things like tactile games to make learning fun and to foster new friendships and connections.

To register, please call: 02083143300 Monday to Friday between 9am and 4pm to make an appointment for a pre-course assessment with supported learning, or you can email: a href=”mailto:[email protected]”>[email protected]

Episode 8 of the BANA Braille Bits podcast features an interview with Braillists’ Chairman Dave Williams. He talks about his work with RNIB on Braille200 and the Braillists gets a mention too.