If you start a book but don’t like it, you can immediately choose another one rather than waiting for your next book to arrive in the post.” There are some great advantages to accessing your Talking Books this way. Now it’s more accessible than ever thanks to Alexa.ĭavid Clarke, Director of Services at RNIB, said: “We are extremely pleased to announce that Talking Books customers can now access the 34,000 books in the RNIB Library by asking Alexa. Innovating with Alexaĭescribed by many users as a ‘lifeline’ during the pandemic, the service sent out more than 1.33 million Talking Books in the last year. The evolution of Talking Books continued through the years with tapes, CDs, digital downloads – and now voice activated technology. The first ever Talking Book created was Agatha Christie’s The Murder of Roger Ackroyd, published by Harper Collins.

Some found the code too difficult, while others had also injured their hands.Īt the time, the National Institute for the Blind (now RNIB) and St Dunstan’s (now Blind Veterans UK) joined forces to create the Sound Recording Committee which originally recorded Talking Books onto records to be played on gramophones.

Their injuries meant they returned to Britain no longer able to read, and not all of them had been able to learn braille. The Talking Books service revolutionized reading for people with sight loss when it launched in 1935 to help soldiers who had been blinded in the First World War. Photo by Royal National Institute of the Blind

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