Deja View : An Updated Look at Some of the Stories Featured Here During the Year : Books for the Blind: : Flood of New Volunteers Doubles Group’s Output

Any business would envy the steep growth-curve of projects at the local office of the American Brotherhood for the Blind in Tarzana. The nonprofit group, staffed almost entirely by volunteers, produces the Twin Vision books that were the subject of a feature in March.

Each week, their Braille transcribers were turning out about 50 of these children’s books, which feature print and Braille, so that the blind and sighted can read a book together. Now, according to program director Jean Norris, the output is closer to 100, partly because of an influx of new volunteers.

One of the leading transcribing units donating its time continues to be a group of inmates at a prison in Nevada.

The American Brotherhood for the Blind produces several other types of publications, including an all-Braille newspaper, Hotline for the Deaf-Blind, that in September went from a twice-monthly publication to a weekly to keep up with news from the Middle East. The newspaper has about 700 subscribers.

The Twin Vision books, calendar, newspaper and all other Brotherhood publications are sent free to those who request them. The address is American Brotherhood for the Blind, 18440 Oxnard St., Tarzana 91356. For information, call (818) 343-2022.