Technical Material in UEB: developing an NLS curriculum

Clovernook Center for the Blind and Visually Impaired opened its doors in 1903, and is located in Cincinnati, Ohio, USA. Clovernook's Braille Printing House has been in operation since 1914, when a printing press was donated to the organization. Braille production has evolved considerably over the years, and today Clovernook is a global producer of braille – over 20 million pages of braille are shipped to libraries and individuals each year. Much of Clovernook's work is on a contractual basis with the National Library Service for the Blind and Print Disabled (NLS), Library of Congress, which provides accessible materials to their patrons. Clovernook also produces a number of additional publications, as well as menus, business cards, calendars, and other assorted braille items. A recent addition to Clovernook's services is an Arts & Accessibility Initiative which subsidizes the production of accessible materials for cultural institutions. At Clovernook, each step of the braille production process is able to be performed in-house – this includes scanning, transcription, proofreading, embossing, binding, and shipping. Clovernook is also a founding member of the Braille Authority of North America (BANA). NLS has offered braille transcription courses and professional certifications since the 1960s. These courses are available free of charge to any citizen or resident of the United States, function as an industry requirement for many state and federal braille production contracts, and aim to ensure that braille transcribers and proofreaders are familiar with the established rules and guidelines of braille codes used in the United States. In November 2012, Unified English Braille (UEB) was adopted by BANA's United States members and implementation began in January 2016. Prior to UEB, English Braille American Edition (EBAE) and Nemeth Braille Code for Mathematics and Science Notation (Nemeth) were the braille codes used for producing braille materials in the United States. As NLS began updating its courses to reflect the new code, it was determined that a new course was needed. The Literary Braille Transcribing course focused on teaching the basics of how to transcribe “literary” materials – it did not address the transcription of mathematics or technical subjects. Moreover, with the adoption of UEB and retention of Nemeth, two viable mathematic codes were now official in the United States – however the Nemeth certification course was the only NLS course that covered mathematics. In the fall of 2016, under contract with NLS, Clovernook began developing the Technical Braille Transcribing course – an NLS certification course for the transcription of mathematics and technical materials using UEB.