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More than 2,000 books in Braille have been accessible since Wednesday at the price of a classic book, more than 40 years after the institution of the single book price, announced the Center for transcription and publishing in Braille (CTEB).
While the CTEB catalog has until now offered its books for sale between 60 and 122 euros, they will now be sold at prices between 11 and 30 euros.
“On January 4, 2023, after forty years of waiting, the single price of the book (Lang law of 1981), from which the classic edition benefited, will be applied to the books in braille in our catalog“, welcomes in a press release the CTEB, both the main Braille printer in France, bookstore and publishing house, based in Toulouse.
“It’s a bold bet“, does not hide the director of the center, Adeline Coursant, from AFP, because her institution only has the capacity to finance this price change for one or even two years.
“We will have to quickly find help to be able to continue“, she specifies, considering however that the risk is worth it”because it is finally doing justice to the blind“.
The cost of manufacturing a Braille book – around 700 euros, according to the CTEB – is much higher than that of conventional books because it requires transcription work done by specialists, special machines and specific, thicker paper. .
“This is an excellent initiative since access to Braille reading allows blind and visually impaired people who practice it to have direct access (to the book) unlike audio reading where you have the prism of someone who reads a book“, rejoices Bruno Gendron, president of the Federation of the blind of France, contacted by AFP.
On the other hand, selling the books at the market price, “this eliminates the discriminatory phenomenon vis-à-vis blind and partially sighted people who had to pay more” for the same work, he added.
To launch its initiative, the CTEB has chosen the symbolic date of January 4, which is World Braille Day.
It was established in 2001 by the World Blind Union to celebrate the birth of the inventor of this tactile alphabet, the Frenchman Louis Braille, on January 4, 1809.
According to figures provided by Mr. Gendron, between 1.7 and 2 million people are visually impaired in metropolitan France.
Among them, about 15%, or between 255,000 and 300,000 people, read Braille, he estimates.