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Facility allows blind students better access to audio books

The University of Arizona is one of the top schools in the nation in providing a wider range of services for the blind, a university specialist said.

Jane Hodgson, a specialist at the Center for Disability Related Resources, said there are about 40 legally blind students at the University of Arizona - half of whom are completely blind.

One of the most important resources for blind students - a mobile studio for recording textbooks on audio tapes - is on display in front of Bear Down Gym until Friday.

Emily Chappell, a representative of Recording for the Blind and Dyslexic, developed a 40-foot mobile sound studio that records textbooks for reading-impaired students, the only one of its kind. The money for the $25,000 studio was donated by a Phoenix family, Chappell said.

"I developed it two years ago because of the need for it at the time," Chappell said.

The company built a permanent studio in Tucson at 7290 E. Broadway Blvd. The mobile studio is on campus this week to promote the permanent facility.

The studio is an expandable room with four work stations. Books are recorded onto audio tapes when a volunteer reads into a microphone and another volunteer records from a computer station.

Chappell said a book takes about two days to be transferred onto an audio tape.

Companies can rent the studio for free, but Chappell said it is booked for the rest of this year.

The non-profit studio made about $500,000 dollars last year, Chappell said.

The Braille Bill, an important legislative move in Arizona, made the mobile sound studio more significant.

According to Hodgson, the bill stated for any book used in an educational institution in Arizona, the publishers is obligated to provide a compact disc of the book for the blind and dyslexic.

The problem with the bill, Hodgson said, is that no penalty exists for the publishers if they don't provide a compact disc. Spanish and math books are the hardest to get on compact disc, she said.

In one incident, a student challenged a publishing company that refused to provide a compact disc with its book because of concerns about copyright. After extensive letters and fear of litigation from the student, the publisher eventually came around, Hodgson said.

Arizona was the first state in the nation to pass a bill of this kind.

Also, CeDRR will provide the students with a visual interpreter in they are enrolled in a class that requires a lot of visual learning. But the students have to do the learning, Hodgson said.

"We are trying to make the experience for blind students like the experience of regular students," Hodgson said.