New England Regional Unit
58 Charles Street
Cambridge, MA 02141
Contact: Christina M. Raimo
(617) 577-1111, ext. 11
traimo@rfbd.org

NEWS RELEASE

FREE RESOURCES FOR MASSACHUSETTS PUBLIC SCHOOL DISTRICTS

September 5, 2007 (Cambridge, MA) - Recording for the Blind & Dyslexic® (RFB&D®) and the Massachusetts Department of Education have announced a collaboration that will allow all Massachusetts public school districts to participate in a new federal program aimed at making it easier for students who have print disabilities to quickly receive copies of textbooks in accessible audio format.

Beginning this month, public school districts will be able to enroll in RFB&D's services at no cost as a result of the program. RFB&D membership will allow districts to provide their students who have documented print disabilities with digital textbooks from RFB&D's CV Starr Learning Through Listening® Library and the recently established National Instructional Materials Access Center (NIMAC), a new entity that houses electronic files of recently published K-12 textbooks.
NIMAC originated with the Individuals with Disabilities Education Improvement Act (IDEIA) of 2004, which requires states to address the critical difficulty facing students with disabilities in obtaining accessible textbooks. In 2006, federal legislation mandated that publishers adopt a new file format, the National Instructional Materials Access Standard (NIMAS) for all textbooks published after July 2006.

Upon the request of schools and districts, publishers are also required to deposit the electronic files into the NIMAC, housed at the American Printing House for the Blind in Louisville, KY, where they are available to producers of accessible educational materials in audio, braille and other formats used by students with print disabilities. RFB&D has been selected by the state as a provider of NIMAC books in digital audio format, which can be produced in a timely manner and shipped to educational institutions who request books for their students from the NIMAC repository.

So that all eligible public school students in Massachusetts will have access to this program, the Massachusetts Department of Education is making basic district-level memberships available to all public school districts, along with playback capabilities for participating schools. These memberships will make it possible for eligible students with disabilities to access newly published textbooks as digital audio books on CD through RFB&D's library.

RFB&D is a national nonprofit organization with local chapters in Cambridge and Western Massachusetts. Currently, more than 9,000 Massachusetts students with print disabilities utilize RFB&D's audio textbooks; nationally, RFB&D serves more than 150,000 members. The organization is a leading producer and distributor of audio textbooks, literature and other educational materials for students who have visual, learning or physical disabilities and are unable to read standard print effectively. The RFB&D library contains more than 37,000 recorded titles, spanning all subject areas and grade levels, produced in digital audio format and provided to students on CDs that allow the user to navigate to specific pages and chapters easily. All of the audiobooks that RFB&D distributes to students can be played back on specialized digital CD players or on a laptop or personal computer loaded with specialized playback software. NIMAC books played back on a laptop or PC will provide the audio of the book being read and highlighted text on the computer screen.

Based in Cambridge, the New England Regional Unit of RFB&D will oversee and implement this program throughout the next year. The unit operates three recording studios in Cambridge, Lenox and Williamstown, which work with nearly 500 community volunteers who record several hundred new audio textbooks each year for students with print disabilities.

For additional information about this program contact Jeanne Guiney, Regional Director of Educational Outreach at the New England Regional Unit, (617) 577-1111, ext. 18,
or email jguiney@rfbd.org.

# # #