News

RNIB has recently made the following announcement with respect to its Personal Transcription service.

What we’re announcing:

We’re pleased to confirm the new model for RNIB’s Personal Transcription Services:

Personal Braille music transcription is coming back in-house, delivered by RNIB experts free of charge.

From listening to the community, it was clear that braille music is a distinctive strength for RNIB. You told us that too few suppliers can provide braille music to a consistent standard at present – we see this as a significant risk for the future sustainability of braille music delivery, and we heard you.

RNIB’s braille music transcribers deliver national expertise and are trusted by the people who use the service. Their work underpins educational and cultural inclusion – enabling musicians to learn, practice, and perform. We will continue to deliver this specialist service free of charge.

Beyond our own service, we’re committed to strengthening braille music provision across the UK by working collaboratively with other organisations to upskill transcribers and build capacity in the sector over time. A stronger, more diverse marketplace benefits everyone. We’ll also work to ensure that where relevant, music transcription is produced at source by publishers and educational institutions.

All other personal transcription (general braille, large print, audio, tactile) will continue through our partnership with our third party supplier, at no cost to users subject to fair usage. The process stays simple – contact the RNIB Helpline, and we coordinate behind the scenes.

Digital braille support – we recognise this is a personal choice, and if and when our community would like support with digital braille, we’re here to help. This includes training, technology grants, and peer networks where you can learn from others’ experiences. We will develop this over time.

Our commitment to braille:

RNIB remains committed to braille in all its forms. We continue to deliver our Library with over 11,000 braille books, our Braille Music Library, RNIB Bookshare with thousands of accessible titles, and lead nationally on braille standards, training, and advocacy.

We’ll also continue our work to ensure transcription is produced at source – working with health, education, and other sectors to build understanding that they have a legal responsibility to provide written material in accessible formats. We stand ready to support anyone facing barriers to transcription, advocating for their rightful access to information.

Full implementation begins early 2026, and we’ll continue to keep you updated as we move forward.

A message from Code Factory:

Dear Eloquence Community,

We’re excited to share some important news directly with you, in case you missed our recent press release: Eloquence, the legendary text-to-speech (TTS) voice, is finally coming back to Android!

Eloquence for Android is coming back!

Starting today, December 2, 2025, we are launching the public beta of Eloquence for Android. To ensure a smooth experience and gather valuable feedback, we’re releasing the beta in stages. This means we’ll be gradually inviting more users over time, starting with a limited group and expanding step by step. If you’re not able to join immediately, don’t worry—we’ll notify you as soon as the rollout is complete and everyone can access the new Eloquence.

How to join:

• On Android: https://play.google.com/store/apps/details?id=com.codefactoryglobal.eloquencetts
• From the web: https://play.google.com/apps/testing/com.codefactoryglobal.eloquencetts

As a reminder, Eloquence is now rebuilt as a 64-bit app, with support for both new and older Android devices (Android 7 or above, 32-bit and 64-bit).

The new version will be available through a subscription model, allowing us to keep it updated and sustainable for the future.

Thank you for your continued support and enthusiasm. We can’t wait to welcome you back to Eloquence and will keep you updated as the rollout progresses!

Best regards,

The Code Factory Team

Code Factory wants to increase the number of testers in their closed Google Group for Eloquence for Android.

Here is the link to apply: https://forms.gle/uyM8hF3xTbvzLzaWA

You may share this form with anyone interested in requesting access.

Please note:

• As a member, you will receive early updates, which may include bugs.
• Apply only if you have testing experience and can recover your device if it becomes unresponsive.
• You are expected to evaluate new versions and provide detailed feedback in the group. A subscription is required.
• The group language is English, so you must be able to communicate in English.
• Respectful communication is required. Inappropriate behavior will not be tolerated.

Position: Self Employed basis – 15 hours minimum but can offer more if required

Hourly rate:  This is dependent on experience

Do you have experience teaching Braille with a passion to help others learn.  We are looking for a patient and reliable Braille Teacher to support one of our students to develop essential literacy and communication skills through Braille.   We will accept an experienced teacher or a skilled Braille user who would love to share their knowledge.

Responsibilities:

• Teach Braille reading and writing
• Develop and adapt lesson plans to meet our student’s needs
• Support our student in building confidence and independence
• Collaborate with family and support staff where appropriate

Requirements:

• Proficiency in Unified English Braille
• Experienced teaching or tutoring visually impaired learners
• A deep understanding of child development principles and effective teaching methodologies.
• Patience, empathy, and the ability to motivate students from diverse backgrounds.

We are committed to safeguarding and promoting the welfare of children and young people.  Therefore, we will require anyone working with our students to have an enhanced DBS check.  You will be self-employed with the ability to invoice for your time.

If you are passionate about making learning accessible and empowering others through Braille, then please apply by sending your cv to [email protected]

The liblouis developer team is proud to announce the liblouis release 3.36.0. The release is available for download at: https://github.com/liblouis/liblouis/releases

Noteworthy changes in this release

This release brings various updates to braille tables, particularly for Slovakian and Norwegian in line with the respective changes to their braille standards. There are new tables for Macedonian uncontracted braille and the long awaited table for English Grade 3 is finally here.

On the technical side, there are modernized Python bindings and better support for building liblouis for environments such as Android.

For a detailed list of all the changes refer to the list of closed issues.

New features

• There is a new table for Macedonian uncontracted braille thanks to Kristijan Lazarev.
• There is a new table for English Grade 3 thanks to Bue Vester-Andersen.

Bug fixes

• Fix a bug with having to double escape certain characters in match patterns. Escaping now works as you’d expect thanks to Christian Egli.

Braille table improvements

• Improvements to Hungarian forward and backward translation thanks to Attila Hammer.
• Update the Slovakian 6-dot literary table to be in line with the latest Slovak braille standards thanks to Peter Vágner and other members of the Braille Authority of Slovakia.
• Added emphasis indication for bold, italic and underline
• Fixed back translation issues
• Added additional symbols for foreign Latin alphabet characters
• Norwegian Grade 2 has seen a major overhaul according to the adjustments made by the Norwegian Braille Authority thanks to Lars Bjørndal.
• Improve the handling of Greek letters in Norwegian 8-dot braille thanks to Lars Bjørndal.

Other changes

• Fix the linking of the fuzzers thanks to Samuel Thibault.
• Use “”config.h”“ instead of “<config.h>“ for portability thanks to Patryk Miś. This change does not affect normal autotools builds, but improves portability for alternative build systems such as CMake, Bazel, or the Android NDK.
• Modernize the Python bindings thanks to Leonard de Ruijter. The minimum Python version is now 3.10. The syntax has been updated, type hints have been added and the doc strings are modernized.

Deprecation notice

• None

Backwards incompatible changes

• None

Invisible changes

• None

New, renamed or removed tables

New

• “mk-g1.utb“
• “en-g3.ctb“

Renamed

• None

Removed

• None

Next release

The next release will be published on March 2 2026.

APH’s Braille Museum will be opening soon! Check out this blog post for more information.

In this episode of the Sound Without Sight podcast, we welcome recorder player James Risdon, whose work has led him from Bach to Bowie, the Middle Ages to Minimalism. He recently performed with Paraorchestra and the Breath at the BBC Proms.

James speaks about his experience as an orchestral musician, focusing on the Proms concert, including:

• The techniques he used to learn his parts, combining braille music and audio.
• His experiences of navigating rehearsals.
• And of course, performing in the Proms itself, including some audio clips…

Playing in an orchestra at the BBC Proms as a blind musician

In this episode of the Sound Without Sight podcast, we explore the making of the BBC Radio 3 documentary, “Joining the Dots – 200 years of Braille Music”. Producer, Kevin Satizabal, and presenter, Matthew Wadsworth, will provide behind-the-scenes insights into:

• How they got into their roles.
• The inspiration behind the documentary.
• Its recording and editing process, and the gear they used.

They also share some clips from the documentary and answer questions from our community.

Making the BBC Radio documentary “Joining the Dots – 200 Years of Braille Music”

From livingbraille.eu:

Today, thanks to James Bowden, we are filling a small gap in our knowledge about music and combining it with Braille in a wonderful way.

So far, we know how Braille music notation works in principle and that it is structured differently from music notation for sighted people.

What we don’t yet know, however, is what “normal” musical notation actually looks like.

James has clearly illustrated this in his contribution using Braille graphics.

Feel the Notation: treble and bass clef symbols as braille graphics

Australian braille music transcriber Christina Christensen has started a resource called Braille Music Now, intended to raise awareness of braille music among (sighted) music educators, directors, etc.

In her words: “Most music educators complete their training without ever seeing a page of Braille music. Not because they don’t care — but because no one ever showed them how accessible music literacy actually works.

“That changes today.

“I’ve created a free 2-page guide + classroom poster designed to help teachers feel confident supporting blind and low-vision musicians from day one.

“Accessible music education should never feel like an add-on — it should be integrated, clear, and fully achievable.

“And as part of this new chapter, I’ll also be sharing regular cello-based demonstrations to show how Braille music works in real musical contexts.

“If you’ve ever wondered how Braille rhythm, intervals, patterns, or articulations are interpreted — you’re going to love what’s coming.

“My mission is simple:
Empower teachers. Support inclusion. Remove barriers before they appear.

“If you’re a music educator, ensemble director, lecturer, or accessibility professional, I’d love for you to download the free guide and join this movement toward fully inclusive music classrooms.”

Check out her website at braillemusicnow.com to access the resources, and the corresponding social media pages at Facebook, Instagram, and/or LinkedIn.