RECORDING FOR THE BLIND AND DYSLEXIC

Northern California Unit
488 West Charleston Road
Palo Alto, CA 94306
Fax (650) 493-5513
Phone (650) 493-3717

Recording for the Blind & Dyslexic (RFB&D) is a volunteer organization whose sole purpose is to provide educational materials in recorded and computerized formats at every academic level. Our materials are for all people unable to read standard print because of a visual, perceptual, or other physical disability. Our volunteers record these books in 30 studios throughout the country. The national office in Princeton, New Jersey, serves as a central distribution center and repository for the 80,000 titles already on master tape. After an initial registration fee, our service is free of charge to our borrowers. We are, therefore, a national resource in a local studio that serves an ever growing local and national borrower base.

The Norther California Unit of RFB&D, located at 488 West Charleston Road, Palo Alto, California, was founded in 1967. There are five soundproof recording booths in our studio and a staff of four. We have 217 volunteers who have spent 14,592 hours in the past year recording 204 new textbooks and duplicating 19,211 tracks for direct mailing to borrowers. We raise all our funds locally and are not a United Way agency.

RFB&D is really about people, not just the people who use our services, but the 4,500 volunteers nationally and the 217 local individuals who, together, record over 3,000 new titles each year. Their donated services open mainstream opportunities to our borrowers and are the heart of our work.

Volunteering Opportunities

Thank you for your interest in becoming a volunteer for Recording for the Blind. We always need volunteers to read general subjects such as history, psychology, and literature.
We also need individuals who have a thorough knowledge of any science or technical subject, such as Accounting, Computer Science, Law, Medicine, Biology, Electronics, Physics, Geology, Mathematics, Chemistry, Engineering, and Statistics.
You must have a willingness to commit to approximately 2 hours per week on a regular basis, either daytime or evenings.

Key Steps to Becoming a Top-rate RFB Volunteer

Step 1 - Understanding your role: Monitoring is the most important area of transcribing textbooks from the printed page to audio casette. All volunteers learn to monitor first so that they will understand our recording process and our reading "conventions". Volunteers work in teams of two and learn to depend on each other. Teamwork is the reason we produce quality tapes for our borrowers.
Step 2 - Training: Everyone coming into the program will be given thorough training. This consists of setting up the open-reel recording tape, following the text as it is being read, making corrections if necessary, plus some basic, but very important record keeping. The training period includes hands-on work, supervised at first and then solo. After a time you may be ready to begin reading the texts we record. We will then ask you to take a voice test. Upon acceptance as a reader, we shall have the benefit our your expertise both as a well-trained monitor and a reader. The ideal volunteer!
Step 3 - Commitment: Knowing that you are needed, that a volunteer partner depends on you and that you are helping visually impaired students, builds commitment. In turn, your commitment enables our borrowers to keep up with their sighted peers in the classroom or workplace of their choice. We ask that you volunteer a minimum of one session (2 hours during the day or 1 1/2 hours in the evening) per week. We will work with you to set up a schedule that meets your needs.

If you are interested in pursuing volunteering with Recording for the Blind, please call for more information at (650) 493-3717.

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