This report describes an interview with a young woman who has been visually impaired since birth and the resources available to those with visual impairments in Edmonton. The interview took place in the summer of 2016. During the fall and winter the interviewee is a university student.
I began my interview by asking Jane (note: the name has been changed) what she read; she responded, “Right now I’m rereading the Harry Potter series.” I asked if there was anything else, and she mentioned that she checks her email and Facebook account almost every day. She checked her email to keep track of things for school, but used Facebook to keep in touch with friends. When asked about where she reads, she said: “it depends on what I’m reading. Like right now I do it in bed or on a rocking chair, but back in Edmonton when I’m studying I’ll do it in the library, the living room, hard surfaces. Anywhere that will help keep me awake.” When asked what times of day she generally reads, she answered that for pleasure she reads “in the morning, on the train, and in bed.”
I also asked Jane what formats she used for reading, and she said that she used contracted braille, audio books, and “for online stuff I use JAWS, a screen reader software.” When asked if there was certain things she used each type for she mentioned that “for things like fantasy, thrillers, or suspense I use audio,” because all the books she has in braille are targeted for a younger audience. This is because the books were given to her from the Braille Institute, which is a nonprofit organization based in California that supplied Jane with braille books back when she was in highschool. When Jane graduated they allowed her to keep the books that she liked and asked her only to send back the ones that she didn’t want. Jane also mentioned that she gets her textbooks from the university in braille. She said that when she goes to buy a textbook she only has to pay the print price and then the university pays to have it transcribed into braille.
I asked about her preferred method of reading--braille, audio books, or JAWS? “I like reading in braille, but now I usually read audiobooks,” she said. When asked why, she said that “They’re easier to carry around, braille books are heavy and take up a lot of space. They’re also cheaper and easier to get.” She told me she gets them from the library, although sometimes she’ll look up a new book online and read it using JAWS. I also asked her if the times she read changed depending on whether she was using audio or braille. She answered, “Not really, just the train. There I only use audio books because it can get crowded and I don’t always have the space to read a book in braille.” I wondered if she gets worried about missing her stop, since she is almost completely dependent on the announcements. She said, “Nah, I keep one headphone in and the other one out to hear the announcement, but sometimes I’ve got caught up in my book and almost missed my stop.”
I also asked Jane if her reading habits had changed from when she was younger. She said, “I used to read a lot more braille back when I was a teenager, I mostly read audiobooks now.” She also mentioned that in her early childhood she also read a lot of audiobooks. She had a teddy bear called Spinoza, and in the back she could insert a cassette and have it read to her. So in a way, she had come full circle, returning to the format she used as a child. She also mentioned that, aside from the cost of braille, she had been turned off it because of a change in the braille code. Jane been reading in braille since elementary school but in her last year of highschool they changed the braille code to what is now called “the unified braille code.” She did not appreciate this change because it meant having to relearn how to read--something that no student wants to face in their final year of highschool when they also have to worry about university applications and provincial exams.
After asking her these questions, I decided to find out for myself about the options a person with visual disabilities has with regards to books in Edmonton. One of the first things I did was to look up the cost of audiobooks online. I did this because, according to Jane, she’d rather look for materials online so she can find out about the book herself without the use of a middle man, as she struggles with store employees. “It’s pretty much the same everywhere I go,” she explained, “if I go to a store I need somebody to help me find things. If it’s a store employee I’ll almost always get the wrong things given to me, like if I go to buy mayo they’ll give me mayo light. It’s just easier to do things without having to trust somebody else.”
After some investigation, I found that on Amazon you can buy the audiobook A Game of Thrones by George R. R. Martin for $37.85. This is costly, however, the second book of the series costs $56.38 and the third $74.65. The audiobook bundle, which includes books one through five, costs $582. That’s a little more than seven times the cost of the paperback box set edition selling for $81.46. Audiobooks, of this sort at least, are not an impulse purchase.
During my interview with Jane she mentioned that whenever she went to Vancouver she’d always go to a braille bookstore. Future Aids is known as the braille superstore, and is located in Abbotsford, BC. It’s a family owned business and all their full time employees are completely blind. They sell more than just books, but for this report I decided to compare the price of a braille edition of A Game of Thrones to the audio version. The Future Aids website lists the price of A Game of Thrones in braille grade two as $225.95 per copy. From looking at their website, I deduced that the more pages a book has, the higher its price. That’s not to say that they don’t have some cheaper books. The classics, like Romeo and Juliet, listed at $26.95, are much cheaper. Regardless, high price makes many braille books unavailable to students, thus significantly impacting reading habits.
Doing this research reminded me about a reading competition that Jane would participate in during high school. The competition focussed on how many braille books the students could read in a couple months. She told me at the time that the competition was held to try and increase braille literacy among the blind. I was confused. She explained that most blind people don’t read braille because they grew up with sight but then lost it. Further, a large percentage of blind readers just prefer audiobooks.
Many libraries provide free access to a variety of different materials--books, dvds, audiobooks, videogames, maker spaces--and yet I had never seen braille books. I decided to interview a librarian to find out what services a local library had to offer people with visual disabilities. She said that the library system had recently changed. Library resources used to be centralized so that those with visual impairments would have to go to the downtown location. This is no longer the case, although “about half the customers still prefer to go downtown because the bus stops right outside the library.” The librarian described some of the services offered, such as a drop off service, a special book club, and some braille books. The drop off service is available for all ages; for patrons, using it requires only “a little interview to find out what kind of books they like, what format they prefer and then they send someone out to do a home inspection to make sure that the volunteers won’t have trouble dropping off the books, parking access, thank kind of thing.” Anybody can attend the book club, although it is called the Visually Impaired Book Club. They discuss audiobooks and a staff member announces new audiobooks. People can then put their name down for the ones they’re interested in. With respect to access to braille, an institutional affiliation with the Canadian National Institute for the Blind means patrons can obtain books on loan from the CNIB’s collection. Improvement to services for the blind are in progress, according to the librarian; for example, a Disability 101 pilot project is currently in the works; the project will involve training staff to better help patrons with disabilities.
In the end, I discovered that access to reading material plays a big role in reading habits. Jane’s reading habits aren’t all that different from other university students. She reads things based on their availability, convenience, and cost. She reads while waiting, like in the morning while getting ready for the day, on the train when waiting to get to school, and at night while waiting to fall asleep. Interestingly, unlike her sighted counterparts, what she reads doesn’t change based on where she is because she need not fear that others see what she is reading. Thus, a reader with a visual impairment is neither exactly the same nor entirely different from other readers.
