The Issue: The U.S. House Appropriations Commmittee allocates only a fraction of the funds requested to upgrade equipment for the Talking Books Program.
The Opinion: The program on which more than 750,000 visually handicapped Americans depend for information and entertainment should not be shut down.
The National Library Service for the Blind and Physically Handicapped, a part of the Library of Congress, has asked for $19.1 million in each of the next four fiscal years to convert books from an antiquated cassette format to a digital format.
Earlier this month the House Legislative Branch Appropriations Subcommittee allocated only $7.5 million for the program next year.
That figure was increased to $12 million last week by the full House Appropriations Committee, but supporters say that is still well short of what is needed.
is it me…
or are Playaways just too easy an answer?
Re:is it me…
We have them. The list of titles is really limited. They wouldn’t be a replacement for the regular CD titles.
Re:is it me…
And a lot of what they do have is abridged. What kind of sick bastard makes abridged audiobooks?
Re:is it me…
What kind of sick bastard makes abridged audiobooks?
One with a short attention span?
*G*
s/
Re:is it me…
I don’t think its a question of selection. Any new technology they created would have to build the selection from ground up. But the technology of the Playaways seems like an easy solution, and its something that could be churned out pretty quickly I would think.