TAR HEEL TALK Winter 2019 Issue No. 157 N.C. Library for the Blind and Physically Handicapped FEATURES • Staff Features • Books on Demand • BARD Madness TAR HEEL TALK 1 STAFF FEATURES: JOSH BERKOV What are your duties really enjoy working at NCLBPH? here, and he was right. I am the Collection It’s been a wonderful Management Librarian. experience, even if it I spend my time classi- does take me away fying incoming vol- from my cats every day umes; selecting and or- for 9 hours. dering large-print ti- What does your posi- tles, DVDs, and Braille tion mean to you? materials; administer- I have been a professional li- ing the Library’s Interlibrary brarian since October 2007, Loan program and playing serv- and this is probably the most ant to his two beautiful cats Ty- rewarding position I have had son and Felix. Oh wait, scratch in terms of knowing that the that! work that I do literally helps How long have you been with thousands of North Carolinians NCLBPH? every single day. If it weren’t It’ll be five years in June 2019. for the subject-coding work Five long and torturous years. that I do, a reader who prefers Um, you’re not going to print cozy mysteries might acci- this, are you? dentally be sent a vampire- filled occult mystery, or a read- What made you decide to ap- er who prefers Amish romances ply at NCLBPH? might end up with a spicy ro- I have a friend who worked mance instead. We certainly here years ago, Lyman Clay- can’t have any of that going on! born, who knew that I was What does a service like the looking for a new job. He National Library Service for strongly recommended that I the Blind and Physically Handi- apply, so I did. I trusted my capped mean to you? friend’s judgment that I would TAR HEEL TALK 2 As someone who has some visual impairment, it warms my heart to know that this service is available to those who cannot read regular -size print. There may come a day where I will no longer be able to read print myself, and knowing that NLS exists gives me comfort re- garding my future. Do you have a certain project you have worked on which you were very pleased with the results? I am particularly pleased with the results of our Rating unrated Books project. We are participating in a national endeavor to read and rate the commercially-produced audio books that NLS has ac- quired. So far, our volunteers here in NC have contributed over 150 book ratings to the project, one of the top-five largest contribu- tions of any of the network libraries who are participating. Do you have a message for our patrons? “Live! Live! Live! Life’s a banquet and most poor suckers are starv- ing to death!” – Auntie Mame. “Tar Heel Talk” is a quarterly publication of the N.C. Library for the Blind and Physically Handicapped (NCLBPH), State Library of North Carolina, and N.C. Department of Natural and Cultural Resources. Address ….1841 Capital Blvd Governor …………...Roy Cooper Raleigh, NC 27635 Secretary …………..Susi H. Hamilton Voice………(919) 733-4376 State Librarian …….Timothy Owens Fax ………..(919) 733-6910 Regional Librarian ..Carl Keehn TDD ……… (919) 733-1462 Editor ………………..Clint Exum Toll Free ….1-888-388-2460 Editorial Staff ………Gina Powell Email ………[email protected] Web Page: http://statelibrary/ncdcr.gov/lbph Internet Catalog, Ordering Site: http://webopac.klas.com/nclbph TAR HEEL TALK 3 BOOKS ON DEMAND SERVICE For sixty years, the North Caro- Imagine having multiple talking lina Library for the Blind and books, but only on one car- Physically Handicapped has tridge. When you’re done with provided accessible books to its one book, you can go to your patrons. The book format our Bookshelf on your Digital Talk- library has provided has ing Book Player and go to changed throughout the years. whichever book you want to Initially, we delivered our pa- read next. Patrons who use trons records; then, decades BARD, BARD Mobile, or BARD later, we moved to cassettes Express may see similarities be- followed by digital talking tween BoD and the BARD ser- books on cartridges we use to- vices. day. Now, patrons are capable of downloading those talking books, as well as digital braille books, from BARD and NOBLE. Patrons of a Library for the Blind and Physically Handi- capped should be fairly familiar with the numerous digital car- tridges they receive in the mail. Patrons can receive multiple books in a single delivery, and, as everyone knows, it can be difficult to keep track of multi- ple cartridges. With a new ser- vice we are currently testing called Books on Demand (BoD), we hope to make the delivery of these talking books easier for patrons. TAR HEEL TALK 4 With BoD, a patron would have one cartridge containing multiple talking books delivered to them at a time. When our patron is done with that cartridge, they may return it to the library through the mail and a second cartridge should either already be delivered or on its way if the patron requested it or had more books in their queue. This would eliminate the wait time while changing cartridg- es. Once the patron is done with the second cartridge, they can send it back, while the original cartridge is on its way back to the patron. It’s like a juggling act. When a patron’s cartridge is deliv- ered back to the library, our staff will load the books from a patron’s queue or books a patron may have requested from a Read- er Advisor. Once loaded on the cartridge, it is shipped back to the patron. We are currently in the pilot phase of this process to smooth any bumps in the road we encounter. Moving forward, we will gradually move more and more of our patrons to the BoD service. TIPS FOR BETTER SERVICE • Please be sure to return cartridges in the container that matches the book or magazine. • If you receive large print or audio magazines, please return them to the library when you are finished reading them. • If there is a problem with a cartridge or the cartridge is missing, put a note in the case or a rubber band around the damaged car- tridge. Please do not write on the cartridge, case, or any labels on these items. • If you often replace your smartphone, there is a maximum num- ber of devices you can have registered with BARD. Please notify us when you get a new phone so we can delete the old one from your account. TAR HEEL TALK 5 FRIENDS CORNER Dear Friends, ing a braille As many of you have probably writer to as- received either an email or a sist them with letter to renew your member- their daily ship with the Friends of the Li- lives. We are brary recently, we hope you very pleased have renewed online or by to have pro- sending in your renewal by vided this mail. Your membership helps us equipment to these individuals to support and enhance the and know this has made a dif- services of the NC Library for ference to them. If you would the Blind. So, your support is like more information about greatly appreciated and valued. the Braille Writer Program or would like an application, go to As you might recall, we started our website at the James Benton Braille Writer www.friendsnclbph.org and program last year. This program click the link to the James Ben- provides braille writers to indi- ton Braille Writer program. Al- viduals who are unable to pur- so, if you have or know of any- chase this expensive piece of one who has a braille writer equipment and do not have any not being used, you can donate other resources available to that unused equipment to us, them to acquire this equip- and we will refurbish it. Then ment. Since that time, we have we will find it a new home provided ten braille writers to where it will benefit someone well-deserving individuals who else. had no other means of obtain- TAR HEEL TALK 6 This is just one example of how your memberships and donations are used to help the Friends carry out our mission and goals. You can also invite others to become a Friends member by sharing this newsletter and asking them to join online and paying through Pay- Pal or by sending in their membership to us at: Friends of the Li- brary for the Blind, 1841 Capital Blvd., Raleigh, NC 27635. Did you know that you can support Friends of the Library when you shop at Amazon? All you need to do is register at Smile.Amazon.com and designate Friends of the NC Library for the Blind and Physically Handicapped as your nonprofit organization and 0.5 percent of your purchase will benefit the Friends. After reg- istering the Friends as your nonprofit organization, every time you shop at Amazon using the Smile.Amazon.com web address, the Friends organization will receive 0.5 percent of your approved or- der. Everything on the Amazon website is the same using this ad- dress as it would be if you used just the Amazon website. So, please register and tell your Friends to register as well to help show your support for this outstanding organization. We would appreciate it very much! Until next time, take care and we thank you very much for your con- tinued support.