The BLOVI Girl’s Guide to Faking It (for those of us who can’t see crap): Volume 3-Reading for Enjoyment
I am an avid reader and always have been. Before the accident I was a late adopter to the whole e-reader thing. I just loved to hold a book in my hand and turn pages. I was also a person who loved to own the books so I could read then at my pace and again and again. That all changed when I could no longer see to read. And luckily the dawn of the digital reading age helped out with that. In this blog I focus on ways to read when you can’t see printed material.
Free books for the blind and visually impaired: There is a service called Talking Books that I accessed through the SC State Library. In 2010 I received the new on the market digital player for the blind, but most impressive was the massive yellow tape player. That’s right; I am referring to the cassette tapes of my youth. Those wonderful things that melted in your car, got stuck in the player and had you trying in vain to role the tape back in or replace the casing so that you did not have to buy INXS’s The Swing for the fourth time. Not to mention the superior sound quality. I think those have been phased out. Talking books now also has a service where you can download free books, much like the system at the local libraries. They come out with catalogs of the holdings except that those catalogues are in 10 font and of course I can’t read them. Seems strange this would be delivered in hard copy. But stranger things have happened.
There is also a website you can access of you are visually impaired where you can download books for free. There is a yearly fee that is absurdly reasonable. The site is called Bookshare and there is quite a large catalogue available. Note that when you download anything you have to use a zoom function or have a built-in reader like on Apple products or software like Zoomtext to make downloaded documents work.
I also began my visually impaired days checking out audiobook’s on CD. I had to wait weeks to get anything that was relatively new and found that trying to keep the multiple CD’s in order was frustrating. Now libraries have online downloads and the digital books you can check out. If they would have made the buttons a little bigger and color coded they would have worked for me, but they don’t. However, they are big enough to work for those of you who just need magnification.
E-Readers or whatever they are now called: Months after the accident I was beginning to get tired of audiobooks with their multiple CD’s that I was constantly getting out of order and losing. I had stopped buying CD’s years ago when I switched like everyone else to the IPod and digital downloads. Then a miracle happened that was called the second version of the Kindle which was able to read aloud to you. After months of suffering through long waiting lists to get not even the most recent audiobooks, paying through the nose to get the CD’s or having to put the laptop in my bed next to me to listen to books I had downloaded, I finally had an option that was more portable where I could get the newest releases.
I have burned through three Kindles as I am reading (listening to) at least one book or maybe two every day. I broke the screens on the first two long before they died when I rolled over on them after falling asleep listening. But since I am not using the screen I could care less. The screen, however, does zoom up, so if you need less magnification than I do, which is anything under 6X, you can read without text to voice. Just note that your finger may be permanently damaged by how many times you will have to forward the page. For me, the switch from holding a book and turning the pages and reading at my own pace to being read to was difficult at first. And the adjustment to the computer voice was also a little jarring. Because I read really fast I had the Kindle talking at breakneck speed which works find for fiction but was not as good when reading a book on neuroscience. I had to keep stopping and going, what the hell was that. Then Amazon bought Audible, a main website for downloading audiobooks. This meant two things. One was that text to speech function was no longer available for books that were on audiobook, so you are somewhat forced into the audiobook version. Older titles sometimes have text to speech enabled but sometimes do not. The problem with audiobooks, as you all know, is if the reader’s voice annoys you it just ruins the book. And now there is no way to switch to the sometimes less annoying voice of my computer man. Second, when getting my third Kindle basic version (since I can't use a touch screen) I learned they took out the voice over function on the unit This meant if I could not get an audiobook format through Audible I was screwed. So, if you need text to voice, which you will if you can’t get the font big enough in the screen, you must go and find what is now called a Kindle Keyboard. You can find them on Amazon or EBay. Of course if you have an IPad thee is a zoom function as well as a text to voice function built in. And I am clueless about the Nook because I chose Kindle and I have this thing about brand loyalty.
Reading Glasses: Everyone knows you can go and get some cheap readers that magnify up to 3X in any local drugstore. But know that there are magnifiers available that are much stronger when you need them. I have been through three pair of magnifier glasses so that I could make an attempt to read in public. I started with 10X and thought those were the most powerful you could get. But I could only read 16 font and not easily. Guess what--nothing is in 16 font. So I went back to my low vision doctor and he came out of his mysterious back room filled with goodies with a pair of 14X glasses. They were really hideous but I could care less, they were in my hands and I could read 12 font on a good sight day. I used these for a while and realized that I could only see the 12 font if it was bold and not in cursive and not at all in dark restaurants, so I went back again to get more powerful ones. Again he goes in the mysterious backroom of low vision goodies and comes out with a pair of 16X magnifiers and a pin light you attached to the glasses to read when there is less light. The transition from getting fed up with the 10X, and then 14< and to the now functional 16X took almost two years. And I always ask myself, why did I not ask for a light sooner because with the light and the 16 X I can read almost any menu or document in any light. What happened was necessity dictates something more useful. You adapt to what you have and don't know there is any other option until you get to a point where it is really screwing up your life and you look for a better option.
And that is what you will do when your eyesight begins to change. You will look for different options. Hopefully, now that you know what is out there, you will adapt faster and continue reading. And speaking of different options and adapting, I have decided, starting next week, to make this a video blog. This will make it easier for those who can’t see so well and I can show you all my nifty tricks and gadgets.
Keep Moving Forward,
Beth (BLOVI) Medlock
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