Posts by Rachelle Stein

As part of our monthly series, we're sharing highlights from our postings on Facebook, featuring updates from the National Library Service www.loc.gov/nls, news about our programs, and links to sites we thought interesting and useful. You can follow us on Facebook to get all our updates as we post them.

Once again, we're sharing highlights from our postings on Facebook, featuring updates from the National Library Service, news about our programs, and links to sites we thought interesting and useful. You can follow us on Facebook to get all our updates as we post them.

Have you ever wondered why it takes so long for new books to be added to our Talking Book collection? A lot of steps make up the process. Here at the Andrew Heiskell Library, we are able to supplement the audio collection we get from the National Library Service for the Blind and Physically Handicapped (NLS) with books we record in our own Audio Book Studio (ABS), with the assistance of volunteer narrators, monitors, and audio proofreaders.

Recently, The New York Times ran a wonderful peek inside the studio in their City Room article "Audio Books with a New York Accent." So the time seemed right for us to offer our own 

Once again, we're presenting links to sites covering disability issues, as well as announcements of changes and enhancements of the services, and anything else that caught our attention during September. These links and announcements previously appeared on our Facebook and Twitter pages.  

We're sometimes asked to explain what we do to individuals or groups of people interested in or in need of the library services we provide. In the past, this often meant long, even tedious descriptions of how we put the right books in the homes of our patrons. There was little if anything to which we could make comparisons.

But now, thanks to online services like Amazon, the explanation has become a snap. The following is from a presentation made by Mark McCluski, Head of the Andrew Heiskell Library. We thought you would enjoy reading it.

Of all the reference questions I expected upon coming to work at the Andrew Heiskell Library in its current location on West 20th Street in Manhattan, "Where is Teddy Roosevelt's birthplace?" was nowhere on my list. I quickly learned that the Theodore Roosevelt Birthplace Historic Site is a short two blocks east, at 28 East 20th Street, and that this question comes up mostly during the summer tourist season. Since then, I've often walked past this now familiar, unassuming townhouse and feel as if I'm stepping back in time.

For a long time, our newsletter, NewsLion, has been our primary way to communicate with people, and while it remains the best way to update the most people on new services, the latest books recorded in our very own Audio Book Studio, upcoming programs, and other services and agencies of interest to our patrons, it is not the most timely of publications. Because it is published only four times a year, we find out about many interesting and useful books, services, and programs too late to include them in the latest issue. To help get the word out between issues, we now have this blog, plus our Facebook 

If Google can be used as a verb, why not BARD? BARD is the acronym for the National Library Service's Braille and Audio Reading Download service. If you're registered for Talking Book service from the Andrew Heiskell Library and have a digital player, either a National Library Service (NLS) machine or one you purchased from an outside vendor such as HumanWare, you're probably already downloading books. But if not, what are you waiting for?

People often ask us how we send out our books. Sometimes, it seems as if they magically appear in mailboxes across the city, but there's a lot of hard work that goes on behind the scenes to make that magic happen. We here at the Andrew Heiskell Braille and Talking Book Library thought we'd give you a peek into the processes of connecting books and patrons of the library. We'll start this series of posts with a look at patron profiles.

It seems like just yesterday that we were celebrating the Andrew Heiskell Library's Centennial. On June 3rd, this library will be 115 years old. The library has had a number of names and even more locations over those years, but one thing has not changed: our dedication to serving people who are physically unable to read standard print.

Return of the Blog: Once upon a time, the Andrew Heiskell Library had a blog. It disappeared for a while, and during that time, the library's website got redesigned, and now the blog is back, as part of The New York Public Library's Blogs. We're thrilled to be able to offer this communication format once more. And just in time for the vital Don't Close the Books on Libraries Budget Action campaign.