ILLINOIS STATE LIBRARY’S TALKING BOOK AND BRAILLE SERVICE (TBBS)

The Talking Book and Braille Service (TBBS) provides audio and braille library service via mail or digital download to any Illinois resident who is unable to read standard print material due to a permanent or temporary visual or physical disability.

The following persons are eligible for service:

• Blind persons whose visual acuity, as determined by competent authority, is 20/200 or less in the better eye with correcting lenses, or whose widest diameter of visual field subtends an angular distance no greater than 20 degrees.

Other physically handicapped persons are eligible as follows:

• Persons whose visual disability, with correction and regardless of optical measurement, is certified by competent authority as preventing the reading of standard printed material.
• Persons certified by competent authority as unable to read or unable to use standard printed material as a result of physical limitations.
• Persons certified by competent authority as having a reading disability resulting from organic dysfunction and of sufficient severity to prevent their reading printed material in a normal manner.

Eligible readers must be residents of the United States, including the several states, territories, insular possessions, and the District of Columbia; or, American citizens domiciled abroad.

Visit http://www.ilbph.org/ for more information and an application. Or call the Illinois State Library at 1-800-426-0709 (M – F, 8 am – 4:30 pm).