A project has been carried out in Maharashtra of donating 12000 Braille books to 50 schools scattered all over the State by the Society in general. These are actually 110 books with 110 copies each. The difference about these books is, all the books are done by volunteers who do not know Braille. These people have worked from their Home, on their own Computers, in their free time, without expecting any returns in any form what so ever.
This was possible with the help of a simple font and a workable brain wave. The font used in this project was a newly developed one specifically for Braille, taking care that only the letters defined in the Braille for Devnagari script are included in the Font. This font is given to anybody who ever want to do the Braille book. A page consisting of 8-10 very simple rules is also handed out along with the Font. From the minute the font is installed on the Computer, the user can start producing the Braille Book. A norml person has a pair of eyes and a brain that is taught how to read. The same functionalities are used to the advantage for producing Braille books. The person working for making the book can see what he/she is typing in Devnagari but at the same time does not need to know the dot combinations of the Braille script for any of the characters, he/she is working with.
These books so generated can be printed on any Embossor of any make and Model without hassles of Drivers or any other Computer specific problems. As long as the Embossor supports English as reference Language and Script, these books can be printed anywhere in the World and still it will be a Devnagari Braille Book. Problems of Versions or OS do not affect the Book printing.
The concept is very simple and very effective, as has been proved in Maharashtra. People spread out all over the Globe are contributing in the Common Library for a social cause. The same can be done in each of Indian Regional Language and Script. Knowledge and Experience of this experiment can be shared with anyone interested. Be it Government, NGO or individual.
The Braille Books were donated to the schools first, because that is a place where hundreds of Visually Challenged friends come together. The same set of people, who made the books for school children, are now working towards generating Braille Books for Older people and starting a movement to encourage Braille section in Government and College Libraries. So that Visually Challenged People out of Schools can have access to the Braille Books.
This is the work of a small group of socially aware people, which does not have a name. But there are many such groups active over a long period of time. All these efforts are very important but remain scattered. Now a Website is maintained to list all these efforts together at one place with due mention of the Credits. This website starts with Marathi books. However, it can be extended for Braille books in all Indian Languages and Scripts. That is why the name is www.BlindBooks.in