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Getting Started
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INTRODUCTIONWelcome to the Talking Book Program! The Talking Book Program (TBP) is a division of the Texas State Library and Archives Commission (TSLAC) in Austin, Texas, and works with the National Library Service for the Blind and Physically Handicapped (NLS) in Washington, DC, a program administered by the Library of Congress. TBP provides unabridged books in alternative formats for Texans of all ages who are unable to read standard print material due to visual, physical, or reading disabilities. This service is provided free of charge. If, after reading Getting Started with the Talking Book Program, you have any questions, please contact us: Talking Book Program Our business hours are 8:00 am to 5:00 pm, Monday through Friday. Voicemail is available after hours and on weekends and holidays. For more information about TBP or NLS, visit the web site of the National Library Service for the Blind and Physically Handicapped. Please contact us if:
OUR COLLECTIONTBP provides books on cassette tape, in braille, and in large print. Our collection consists of more than 80,000 titles, including bestsellers (fiction and nonfiction), classics, mysteries, westerns, science fiction, children's books, biographies, and more. In addition, our collection contains hundreds of titles in Spanish, and some in French, German, Russian, and other languages. TBP also offers more than 80 different magazines, such as Newsweek, Reader's Digest, Sports Illustrated, Cooking Light, Ebony, National Geographic, Parenting, Guideposts, and Texas Monthly. NLS provides most of the materials in our collection. In addition, volunteer studios in Austin and Midland record books by Texas authors, books about Texas, and books in Spanish to supplement our collection. TBP does not provide textbooks. For information about textbooks in alternative formats, first contact your school. An organization that produces textbooks in alternative formats is Recording for the Blind & Dyslexic. CIRCULATIONTo remain active in our service, you must order one book or magazine per year. CATALOGSOur collection is too extensive to be included in one catalog; however, many subject catalogs are available, upon request, in large print and selected other formats. They list books in categories such as Coping Skills, Bestsellers, Mysteries, Westerns, Religion and Inspiration, and Romances and Love Stories. Catalogs containing books of interest to young readers also are available. NLS provides cumulative listings of cassette and braille titles produced in a particular year. They also publish bimonthly catalogs containing current releases: Talking Book Topics for books on cassette and Braille Book Review for books in braille. These two catalogs are available in alternative formats as well as on computer diskette. You may review them electronically at the following websites: Talking Book Topics and Braille Book Review. Some catalogs include titles in more than one format. To assist you, each book has a prefix code indicating its format. For example:
Not every book is available in every format. Additional listings of books in our collection may be found at the following websites: To request a catalog or if you need assistance selecting books, please give us a call. ORDERING BOOKSThere are four different ways to order books:
SERVICE OPTIONS Your Book Requests If you have difficulty finding books on a specific topic, staff members can perform research for you upon request. Selections resulting from this research will be added to your request list. Books Selected for You Remember, for assistance, please call TBP during regular business hours at 1-800-252-9605 (toll-free in Texas) or 512-463-5458 (Austin area). Help us help you receive the number and kinds of books you like to read. RECEIVING AND RETURNING MATERIALS Loan Period for Books Loan Period for Magazines Returning Materials Postal Regulations Damaged or Incomplete Books EQUIPMENTBecause our cassettes are not recorded at commercial speeds, you need special equipment to listen to them. TBP provides this equipment to you on loan. Equipment must be returned if you become ineligible or no longer use our service. If at any time your equipment is not working properly, call us first to request a replacement machine, then return the broken machine to us. Do not include replacement requests or other notes with returned machines. Since we are unable to send empty boxes to you, you should save the original box to facilitate return of equipment. All equipment may be returned postage-free to:
Players are sent out with fully charged batteries; however, some batteries may lose their charge during shipping. Upon receipt, first determine if the battery in your unit is charged. To do this, hit the play button to listen to the operating instructions tape. If the tape inside the machine will not play, has unusually low volume, or plays at a very slow speed, plug the machine into a wall outlet for 8 to 12 hours to charge the battery. After recharging, unplug the player and operate it on the battery. Once you have listened to the instruction cassette, you may continue to listen to other cassettes until the battery in your player runs down. When this happens, you will hear a sudden decrease in volume that cannot be corrected using the volume control or the tape speed will begin to slow down. It is also possible that a player with a drained battery will not play at all. If your battery has lost its charge you should plug the player into an electrical wall outlet for 8 to 12 hours. It is possible to listen to tapes during the recharging process, but wait a couple of minutes after plugging in the player before attempting this. Once you stop listening to the tapes, leave the player plugged in for an additional 8 to 12 hours so that the battery can fully recharge. Then, unplug the player and operate it on the battery. Our cassette player is designed to play 4-track cassettes at a special speed. Since there are four sides on each cassette, each 4-track cassette is labeled, "1", "5", "9", etc., to indicate the number of its first side. To listen to a 4-track recording, play the first and second sides of a cassette with the side selector switch pressed down to the left. (This switch is the third control on the top right side of the machine.) Then press the side selector switch down to the right and replay sides one and two of the same cassette. With the side selector switched, side one plays information recorded on track three, and side two plays information on track four. To listen to TBP cassettes, press the speed switch down to the left. (The speed switch is directly above the side selector switch.) To listen to commercially produced cassettes, such as music tapes or cassette books from your public library or local bookstore, press the speed switch down to the right. If you need additional assistance, please call us.
If you experience any problems with your playback equipment, please
call us at DISABILITY INFORMATION & REFERRAL CENTERTBP's Disability Information & Referral Center (DIRC) staff provides information to teachers, counselors, family members of persons with disabilities, and other interested persons. Questions pertaining to adaptive equipment, games and toys, support groups, and other topics can be answered or referred by this department. In addition, the DIRC has a small, circulating collection of print books and a few videotapes pertaining to disabilities. Anyone may borrow materials from this collection (borrowers pay return postage). For information, contact the DIRC at 1-800-252-9605 (toll-free in Texas) or 512-463-5458 (in Austin). "Getting Started with the Talking Book Program" is available as a print publication in large print by request. Talking Book Program |
 
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