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May 25, 2006
Blind librarian guards books in Braille
TALES OF THE CITY
Shining through in world of darkness
Blind librarian guards books in Braille
First posted 01:47am (Mla time) May 21, 2006
By Margaux C. Ortiz
Inquirer
Editor's Note: Published on page A24 of the May 21, 2006 issue of the Philippine Daily Inquirer
WHERE her eyes gave up, her heart did not.
In her little kingdom at the ground floor of the National Library in Manila, Maria Lea Vilvar —the only blind librarian at the institute’s special division—vividly remembers the day her world plunged into darkness.
Vilvar, a 35-year-old native of San Jose del Monte, Bulacan, was in the first grade when she had trouble reading the writing on the classroom blackboard.
“Just like any other child, I was afraid of the dark. But I realized that what I was experiencing then was a different kind of darkness,” she told the Inquirer.
Her classmates began to make fun of her, calling her names and even stealing her baon (packed lunch). It was, she recalled, a very trying time for a seven-year-old girl.
Life-changing news
“I was later diagnosed with retinitis pigmentosa, which enabled me to make out things with my eyes. But it became extremely difficult for my brain to recognize the images,” Vilvar said.
Although she could still see sketchy images of things and people, she could not distinguish colors or faces.
After Vilvar was diagnosed to be suffering from the ailment, her mother decided to transfer her to the Philippine National School for the Blind (PNSB) in Pasay City for her elementary and high school education.
There, she was trained in the rudiments of household work. She also mastered the intricacies of the Braille system and learned how to socialize with “sighted people.”
“Being at the PNSB was like being in a cocoon: we all knew each other and shared similar experiences as blind students,” Vilvar said.
However, nagging thoughts about college and her future would occasionally enter her mind. So when former students of PNSB paid them a visit, Vilvar wasted no time in asking them about their chosen careers.
“I was disappointed that most of them ended up as reflexologists and masseurs despite getting college degrees in education,” she recalled.
There was nothing wrong with massaging clients for a living, she stressed, “but the line of work put limitations on their abilities in the eyes of other people.”
Vivar told herself that she could do better, and began to pray.
Her answer, happily, came in the form of two scholarship grants: one enabled her to get an education degree at the Philippine Women’s University, and another sent her abroad for a year to undergo special computer proficiency training at the Overbrook International School for the Blind in Philadelphia.
Unexpected advice
All was going well for the young Vilvar, until her college professor at PWU convinced her to change her major from English studies to library science.
“I was devastated when my professor discouraged me because my heart was set on focusing on English literature and language,” Vilvar recalled.
Her professor, in hindsight, had a point. Among the many obstacles that she would have to face was the serious lack of English textbooks in Braille, had she decided to push through with her original plan.
“Instead of giving up, I thought of another course that would provide me with bigger job opportunities after graduation,” Vilvar said.
Thinking that all her contemporaries would either choose education or social work as a career, Vilvar decided to take up library science as her professor had advised.
It turned out that fortune was again smiling on her. While she was on internship at the PNSB library, officials of the National Library visited the school in preparation for the construction of a division for the blind at the institute.
“They interviewed me and told me that I could apply at the National Library as part of their staff when I complete my degree,” Vilvar said.
True enough, the young graduate was hired as one of the resident librarians at the Library for the Blind Division in 1995. “I could not believe that I got what I prayed for,” Vilvar said, smiling at the memory of her first day at work.
Today, more than a decade later, the 35-year-old assists some 215 blind regulars at the division and guards a treasure trove of 4,000 books in Braille, 500 large-print books and a thousand tapes.
“The most popular and most borrowed books in Braille here are two donated copies of Harry Potter,” Vilvar said, grinning.
While the books in Braille are popular among the totally blind, the librarian explained that large-print books, with their half-inch fonts, are used by those with poor vision.
Tapes, not books
Vilvar noted that “tape-listening” probably topped the regulars’ list of library activities.
“Sadly, most of our patrons now rely on tapes—where they could listen to their books of choice being read—instead of borrowing books,” the librarian lamented.
This is disadvantageous especially for blind students, whose grasp of spelling have declined with their continued reliance on the tapes, she explained.
“But we also admit that the library’s limited collection of books and dependence on foreign donations have contributed greatly to this trend,” Vilvar said.
She also stressed that the library’s lack of modern equipment and small space was equally frustrating. “In the United States, libraries for the blind take up an entire building,” Vilvar said.
She explained that books in Braille normally take up a lot of space because of their volume and bulk. A pocketbook, for example, when translated into Braille, would equal two three-inch thick tomes.
Apart from recording books on audio tapes for their clients, the librarians at the blind division translate and print portions of textbooks or student handouts into Braille through a special computer program and emboss them for free.
Vilvar and two of her fellow librarians also assist regulars in using the division’s two computers, equipped with the Job Access With Speech (JAWS) program, that allows the user to hear the words or commands on screen being read aloud.
As the division’s sole blind librarian, Vilvar has the special task of classifying and arranging books in Braille which her colleagues cannot read.
“Of course, it is also easier for me to connect with our patrons because I know and have actually experienced their concerns,” the librarian said “All this has been a realization of my greatest dream: to put into practice what I learned in college and help other blind people at the same time.”
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Posted by ransomcg at May 25, 2006 03:57 PM