• Beginnings
• Talking books
• Books on tape
• Cyril White
• Talking book studios open
• A new cassette format
• Audio magazines

Beginnings

In the 1890s the RNZFB (then known as the Jubilee Institute for the Blind) started buying braille books from overseas to meet the needs of the children in its school and, over time, the recreational reading interests of adults. In the 1930s, once the Wellington Braille Club had been founded, the Library was able to obtain locally produced titles.

Talking books

Talking books were introduced in New Zealand in 1937. These books were in the form of gramophone records. Trial machines to play the talking books were bought from England just before Easter 1936, and a plan was developed to purchase at least one copy of each talking book published under the auspices of the British Sound Recording Committee.

The Board of the New Zealand Institute for the Blind was informed that "the average talking book will occupy about six records, costing about four shillings each in New Zealand currency". In early 1936 the first 137 records and two players arrived from England but unfortunately no needles! New Zealand then bought most of the recordings already published by the American Foundation for the Blind. The standard price for an American talking book was one dollar.

By January 1937 only 31 machines had been delivered and a further 30 on order had been delayed. The British Sound Recording Committee had decided to limit the number of machines in England to 500 because it did "not regard the gramophone principle as necessarily being the final form of the reading machine, and is engaged in research work on other systems" (Director's report, December 1937). Of course, records could be easily damaged in transit and through rough handling.

Books on tape

By the start of the 1960s the RNZFB had decided to replace its hard-to-handle records with talking books on tape, and the new players and books were in use by the end of 1961. Initially the cassette was a metal canister squared at one end and rounded at the other. It measured about 9 inches by 10 inches and was over 2 inches deep. The machine that played it was the size of an old gramophone, but had spindles to wind the tape rather than an arm and needle. In 1969 the Foundation decided to take advantage of the smaller and lighter cassette England had begun using the year before. This newer cassette could still hold up to six tracks and offer up to twelve hours reading, but allowed faster copying and enabled the tape to be pre-indexed at the start of sections in the text.

Cyril White

A key figure in the introduction of the tape-based technology was Cyril White. He had already been the designer and maker of locally produced gramophone-style talking book machines. Mr White was a Foundation member and trustee, and would later become the head librarian (a post his sister had already held for many years). In May 1961 Cyril White travelled to London as the technical advisor charged to guide the change from record to cassette. He spent time at the RNIB recording studios, dubbing room, and engineering section before going on to the Nuffield Talking Book Library. Mr White saw the whole operation from selecting titles to be recorded, assigning suitable narrators, copying books from master tapes to cassettes, the allocation, distribution, and repair of talking book machines, and the general circulation of the books themselves. Mr White also visited the Clarke and Smith factory which made the machines and cassettes.

Mr White found that in England blind people hired their talking book machines (then called 'reproducers') at two pounds per annum. Whereas outright purchase would have been beyond many users, the annual charge was a contribution to the cost of getting more machines into use and meeting maintenance costs. From the outset Mr White could see that differences in the New Zealand welfare system and the comparatively high cost of collecting an annual fee "may lead us to adopt some other system".

The big innovation was the copying machine. The ability to copy at high speed up to one dozen copies of a book meant that for the first time a library for the blind might hope to meet the demand for its most popular titles. The Foundation bought a variable speed copier, rewinding machine, and other accessories at a price of just under 800 pounds. Mr White was able to observe the testing of these machines, and in fact suggested the means by which formerly visual displays (e.g. the revolutions counter and the recording level meter) were made audible on the machine destined for New Zealand.

The RNZFB's initial order was for the copier and accessories, over 400 talking book machines, and cassettes and tapes for almost 2,000 books.

Talking book studios open

In 1966 the RNZFB opened its own talking book studios in Titoki Street, Parnell. This for the first time enabled the recording of books published in New Zealand.

A new cassette format

The 1980s saw the Library change its talking book format for the fourth time. In 1986 the Library began moving to the Library of Congress four track format. The cassette plays at half the speed of a normal cassette, and so almost six hours of sound can be recorded on to a ninety minute cassette. Two models of talking book machine used by the Library of Congress were chosen by the Foundation, the C1 (the standard TBM) and the S1 automatic or "easy play" machine.

The project to change the cassette format and reading machines was a big logistical exercise. In February 1988 the Manager of Library Services, Mary Schnackenberg, was able to report that over three years 2,746 titles had been transferred from the former cassette format to the four track format. Over the next few months a further 81 titles were transferred. The recording studios closed temporarily so that all available staff could check and proofread the transfers. Some 1,170 titles were not transferred because the recordings were technically poor or the books were outdated and not of lasting value to the collection. Although the old and the new systems had been overlapped as the four track system was introduced around the country, by early 1988 no readers were left on the old system.

Audio magazines

In April 1987 the RNZFB's Library took over responsibility for the audio magazine service that had been operated by the Association of Blind Citizens (then the New Zealand Association of the Blind and Partially Blind). The RNZFB is still the only agency in New Zealand recording selections from magazines.