Vilnius, the capital of Lithuania, is a very interesting city and it is suitable for everyone, also for disabled. The Library for Blind is one of the place built to improve the blinds‘ life and to increase their opportunities and their creativity. “This is a library but also the biggest publishing house in Lithuania that produces books in braille and in cd format“ said Fausta Kepaliene, the Deputy director, and Dalia Balcytyte, the Chief of Information Resources centre.
- When was this library founded and by whom?
It was created more than 50 years ago by blind people and later also the government took part in this project giving financial support. It has become a national library for blind. We also have branches in other Lithuanian cities like Kaunas , Klaipeda… The fund of the publications of the library in special formats is comprised of over 34 000 publications of which more than 7 500 are audio and Braille books.
- How do you create books in cd format?
We have an audio studio where we produce books in normal script and we read them to make audiable books. They are some in English, in Russian, in Polland but mostly in Lithuanian language.
- Is it just a place to buy books ?
We have a lot of events during all the year like concerts, educational programs, matches of chess or meeting with famous writers. It is not only a place to take books but also to share experiences. The events take place in our educational area or in a appropriate room. We have also a museum about the history and the life of blind people with a lot of tactile objects like the scale model of the Vilnius city or the sculpture of Luis Braille
- Can you explain better what is the educational area and what is its aim?
It is an area for children completely or partially blind. As we have already said some meetings or workshops happen here. For exaple in the workshops blind children can make postcards; They have some different features compared to other postcards: the objects aren‘t very close to eachother, there aren‘t many details and all must be clear. Here you can find also some educational books like “the story of apple tree“ or “the snowman“. While in the neighbouring room they can use the computers and create some robot models.
- In your opinion is this library interesting only for blind people?
No. There are many people interested in blind people‘s life so we decided to make also a museum. You can understand how their equipment was created and how it was evolved over time. There are a lot of radios from the oldest to the most modern, the machines to write in braille, some paintings created by blind people and many other objects. We think that coming here is a really great opportunity to discover a world with which we aren‘t in contact every day.
Federica Astolfi and Maddalena Giunta
