At a visit to McKay’s this past weekend, Connie found three volumes of a bible printed in Braille. I’ve only been to McKay’s a handful of times, but each time I’ve always managed to find something interesting there. These Braille bibles printed by the Braille Bible Foundation are so far the most interesting and unique thing we’ve found there.
Neither of us had ever seen an entire book printed in just Braille. I’ve seen signs and elevator buttons with Braille on them, but never an entire book of Braille.
The books use a pretty heavy weight paper, similar to construction paper. The volumes we found were in pretty good condition and didn’t look like they had been used much at all.
One thing I thought was interesting was that both sides of the page were printed/embossed. Making sure the raised dots on one side don’t mess up the dots on the other side must take some careful aligning in the printing process. The Wikipedia entry on Braille refers to the process as “interpoint”. I can’t really “read” Braille, but I think it’s pretty neat to run my fingers across the raised dots and feel the different patterns.
Connie decided we needed to purchase the volumes because of the note printed on the front page:
Please do not destroy this Braille book
Braille is very expensive to produce. If this volume is no longer needed please return it to the Braille Bible Foundation. It may be returned free of postal charges by writing “Free Matter for the Blind” on the upper right-hand corner of the carton.
Didn’t know that USPS would deliver material for the blind for free. Good to know.
We decided that rather than leave the volumes sitting on the shelf at McKay’s, we’d buy them and ship them back to the Braille Bible Foundation. Hopefully when they go back they’ll get put back to use.
