TALKING BOOKS LIBRARY

There’s a service at the Lake Chapala Society that is only available to US citizens.  For more than 15 years visually impaired or handicapped US citizens have been receiving Talking Books and the machines on which to play them from the US National Library Service (NLS) – right here in Mexico.

“We’ve had people come in that can’t see and can barely hear.  So we’ll read the list of books from the catalogue to them and fill out the form or go on-line and order their books”,  says Ron Jorgensen, library volunteer.   

To register for the NLS Talking Books program, participants must present a U.S. passport or other evidence of U.S. citizenship.  Once registration is approved by the NLS, applicants are mailed, cost free, a cassette player to use for life.  The full-length fiction and non-fiction books and magazines are produced on four-sided cassettes and can only be played on these special recorders.  Cassettes can be ordered either on-line or by mail from a bi-monthly catalogue and returned to NLS by postage-free mail or returned to LCS, where cassettes are kept for six months and then returned to the NLS.      

Volunteer Talking Book Library Coordinator Jean Dresslar said, “When I started working here fifteen years ago, there were only the NLS books.   Well, I wondered ‘what about our visually impaired friends who are not U.S. citizens’?  That’s when I started asking people to donate their commercial CDs.  Now we have a wonderful collection of books that can be used by anyone, and people continue to donate more.  We have Spanish lessons, the Bible, the classics.  We even have books on ancient Japanese history.”

Ron and his wife Myrna drive from San Luis Soyatlan every Thursday to volunteer at the library.  Myrna updates cassettes and CDs, and ensures that they are filed alphabetically by author.  On an average Thursday about 50 packs are checked out or returned to this special library. 

While the NLS library is only for U.S. citizens, the donated CD books are for anyone’s use – visually impaired or not.  “We have an artist in the village that comes in and checks out CD books to listen to while he paints.” said Ron, who also explained that CDs can be checked out for up to two weeks.

Some of the most popular CDs include books authored by Patricia Cornwell, Thomas Harris, and Dean Kootz.  Some LCS members check out recorded books to listen to on road trips – a great idea, as long as they will return them in the two-week time limit.   Along with the CDs and cassettes, the library also carries some large print books such as the Reader’s Digest. 

Jean, Ron and Myrna are looking forward to 2009 when the NLS replaces the old, heavy, recorders with new, lightweight, digital talking books players.  The digital players will have both thumb and flashcard, large control buttons located at the front of the player, and color coded function buttons.

“We are running out of space here, but we are pretty happy.  We’re just grateful to have this place and be able to provide this service,”  says Ron.

You can visit the Talking Books Library in the Neill James House at the back patio of the Lake Chapala Society from 10:00 am to 1:00 pm on Thursdays. 

Reprinted with Permission from the Lake Chapala Review, November 2008 issue