Dušica Murić
Narodna biblioteka Užice
dudabiblio@gmail.com

No. 29 (November 2016), p. 89-97

Serial Publications in Braille in the World and in Serbia

Summary

Thousands of journals adapted for the blind and visually impaired people are currently available all over the world. They can be in Braille, audio formats or large print. Most of them have electronic editions, available to people with reading difficulties by means of the most advanced screen readers. The first journal in Braille was Progress. It was launched in 1881 and is being published ever since. The paper gives an overview of the journals in Braille, starting from the first published using this technique, to those that are being published today in the leading international institutions dealing with the issuance of publications for the blind, as well as a review of the journals currently published in Serbia. Some of them are published by the Royal National Institute of Blind People in London and the Braille Institute in Los Angeles. Both institutes offer different types of journals. There are journals specialized for music, information technology, chess, medicine, art, literature. The paper gives an overview of the newspapers issued in France, Australia, China, Japan and other countries.
The Russian journal Школьный вестник (School Gazette) was launched in 1938. Its content consists of articles on science, arts, culture, sports and other topics. In addition, it promotes the achievements of the blind around the world in various fields. By means of various tactile models, it tries to conjure up visual art to its readers, so in a number published in 1998 it brought a relief map of the Russian Federation adapted to blind people. Since then in each copy of the journal, readers can get a variety of tactile models that bring visual arts closer to them. The magazine is distributed outside Russia and is very popular among the blind population. Esperanto journals in Braille such as Esperanta ligilo (Esperanto League) and Aŭroro (Aurora) are also very popular among the blind. Some of the most famous journals, such as National Geographic, The New York Times Book Review, Braille Digest, Playboy, PC World, Rolling Stone and many others are published in Braille as well.
Despite the development of digital printing, no more than a few journals in Braille are published in Serbia. Their quality, publishing regularity and print run are not satisfactory.

Keywords:

serial publications, journals, Braille, Esperanto, publishing, visually impaired persons, people with reading difficulties, libraries for the blind

Submitted: 28th August 2015
Correction to the manuscript: 23th February 2016
Accepted for publication: 21st August 2016.

Serial Publications in Braille in the World and in Serbia by Dušica Murić is licensed under a Creative Commons Attribution-NonCommercial-NoDerivatives 4.0 International License.

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