The first time I came to Braille House was because of print books, back when a second-hand bookshop filled the upstairs of the Queenslander in Annerley. By the end of my visit, I’d been introduced to a library full of braille books – row after row, shelf after shelf, of thick square books meant for the touch. I’d been making and selling books for years, but I’d never seen books like these! How on earth were they made? Those dots had me hooked.
A sighted person learns braille
First, I completed the Braille for Print Users course. Between August and November 2023, I came to Braille House every week and spent 3 hours learning the alphabet, contractions, and the endless exceptions to rules (thanks, Ailsa!). For a person who had studied spoken languages and signed languages (Auslan), this writing system was wild! And fascinating! Nearly every day, I practised my braille at home. I banged away on my rented Perkins brailler and very, very slowly read children’s books that were almost invisible to the eye. And by November, my braille was pretty solid. (That’s sadly the best it will ever be.)
Making braille books in the bindery
Once 2024 rolled around, it was time to move onto making braille books. With Braille House’s kind welcome, I started coming to Braille House as a volunteer to learn each step of how braille books are made. For the first few months, I came into the bindery on Friday mornings. The two regular volunteers taught me step-by-step how to put a book together.
Gradually, I learned how to do each part… Preparing and laminating spine labels and cover images. Punching holes in the embossed braille pages – and double-checking the brailled page numbers so you don’t get them out of order! Feeding tall piles of thick paper onto comb binders. Wrapping the spine tightly with tape and carefully sticking on labels, images and blurbs. And looking at the tall piles of 3, 5, 8 volumes at the end of the day, before we carried them to the library to be catalogued.
The first book I bound from beginning to end, entirely by accident, was Robbie Arnott’s Limberlost. When I realised what I’d done I was so proud – I could really bind braille books. I even took it with me as Show and Tell when I gave a presentation about braille books at a conference in Canberra.
Checking out the Braille House library
After a few months of stories and camaraderie with the bindery ladies, I moved to the Braille House library in July. I’d studied to be a librarian many years before, but this library is always a special case! Nearly every book comes in multiple volumes, its braille code might be today’s Unified English Braille or an older version, are there tactile images that we need to mention in the catalogue?
The librarian and library volunteers showed me how to unpack and clean the big blue postal bags – clearly labelled “Postage free: Material for people with print disabilities”. How to return the borrowed books through the library’s cataloguing programs. How to choose new books for patrons, check them out, and pack them ready to go another eager reader.
I learned how to find books in the library stacks, with its many generations of bindings and shelving systems. I updated and cross-checked catalogue records as the library prepared to move from one cataloguing program to another (one useful thing I learned at library school!). And I heard how much care and time the library staff gave to library borrowers as they spoke to them, helped them choose books, and answered their questions.
Transcribing typed words in braille dots
Later in the year I moved into “production”, where staff and volunteers turn printed words into brailled words, on screen and on paper. My first task was to take a PDF from a published book that Braille House was converting into a braille book. The publisher sent this file to Braille House under the Marrakesh Treaty, which lets books be converted into accessible formats outside of the traditional copyright system. The PDF ha converted to a Word document, and I had to check – word by word, line by line – that the Word document was an exact replica of the printed book.
And then – and this is where Braille House’s work is different from standard publishing houses – I needed to change punctuation and formatting of this document to make it suitable for braille readers. Do braille users need that blank line, that centred text, that extra bolding? No, none of it? Gone! Keep it simple and keep it accurate.
The senior transcriber then taught me how to import a Word document into the braille transcription program. The first step is an automated process, with the text and formatting converted to meet braille conventions. The second step is working through the braille file – cell by cell, line by line – to make sure it meets the standards for braille text and formatting. This is painstaking but a fun intellectual challenge – just right for someone like me.
Once the braille file is ready, it is prepared for embossing (the braille version of “printing”) and for conversion into a BRF – a braille ready format file. This is an electronic braille document that braille readers can access through their refreshable braille displays (sort of like the braille version of an e-reader). But before the book goes out into the world, the braille file is checked by proofreaders and checked again if necessary. Braille readers need quality braille, just as sighted readers need quality print. After all that checking, the book is embossed and taken to the bindery and adapted into a BRF to share digitally with library patrons.
So why does Braille House make braille books?
What I’d learned by the end of this year of volunteering was that Braille House makes braille books because it cares about braille readers. Many staff and volunteers have been involved for years, even decades. They spend time making fat books full of dots because they want braille users to have access to as many high quality, well produced, useful materials as possible. Because they want braillists to be able to read just as sighted people can.
If you want to learn more about my research, you can find information on my website and on the website of UQ’s Centre for Communication and Social Change, or get in touch with me via email.
And my thanks to Braille House
I want to end with my heartfelt thanks to all the Braille House staff and volunteers I have connected with over the last 18 months. Thank you for making space for me to work with you and speak with you. Thank you for teaching me some of what you know. Thank you for answering my endless questions and telling me things I didn’t even know to ask. And thank you for laughing with me, chatting with me, sharing excellent Friday cakes with me, and making me part of the Braille House community. I am grateful for all you have offered.