RFB was founded in 1951 by a group of New York women led by Mrs. Ronald Macdonald, who began recording textbooks for blind Korean war veterans. RFB now has 27 professionally equipped recording studios throughout the country, manned by 4,500 dedicated volunteers readers and monitors, and a master tape library of over 33,000 recorded volumes in New York City. Last year, RFB circulated more than 75,000 recorded textbooks to over 11,000 visually or physically handicapped students and professionals.

RFB is the only national organization of its kind in the world devoted exclusively to providing recorded educational materials for the handicapped. We make it possible for thousands of young people to attend schools and colleges throughout the country and to compete successfully with their peers in business and professions ranging from mathematics, computer science, and financial management through medicine and the law.

With an annual consolidated budget of more than $2.5 million, RFB has traditionally relied on private support from foundations, corporations, and individuals. We have two critical special projects, however, for which we have an urgent need for funds which are not available from our normal private sources.

One critical need is for a complete duplicate master tape library. We now have over 33,000 volumes on tape in our New York library. This represents almost 4 million hours of volunteer work. If these master tapes were destroyed by fire, the loss would be incalculable. Even if the tapes could be re-recorded, an entire generation of printhandicapped students would be deprived of the tools necessary to lead productive lives in a sighted world. RFB has therefore undertaken a program of duplicating these master tapes and storing them in fireproof facilities underground in upstate New York. We are using funds from our operating budget to make duplicate master tapes of new titles as they are recorded, but we desperately need an additional $495,000 to complete duplication of tapes already in our master tape library.

Our second urgent need is for funds to computerize our ordering process and library operations. At peak periods during the academic year, student requests pour in at the rate of over 1,000 daily. A fully computerized ordering process and library service would not only permit us to reduce the "turnaround time" for filling student requests, but would also add a whole new dimension to our library service.

Under the present system, students order books by title, author, and edition. With the proposed computerization, students would be able to order books by subject matter as well, thus providing our users with a substantially increased research capability, a service of enormous value to students already operating at a time disadvantage compared to their sighted classmates.

Finally, under a fully computerized service tied in with other recording organizations, RFB could serve as an "information center" for all recorded educational material available to the blind and handicapped.

Both the executive branch and the Congress have previously evidenced their support of RFB with two separate grants, totaling $500,000 for operating expenses for 1975. This has been enormously helpful during a particularly difficult fundraising period. I would

like to emphasize, however, that RFB does not intend to rely on public moneys for operating expenses in the future. As our services continue to expand and improve, we will look to the private sector for our support, as we have for the last 25 years.

We are here now only because we are faced at one and the same time with two very urgent capital projects for which addtional funds must be found. With these funds, we cannot only insure the continuation of our services, we can also dramatically improve these services, enabling our users to lead ever more useful and productive lives.

Thank you.

Mr. LEHMAN. Thank you, Mr. Carothers.

Mr. Krents.

STATEMENT OF HAROLD KRENTS, LAWYER, SURREY, KARASIK AND MORSE, WASHINGTON, D.C., AND MEMBER OF THE BOARD OF DIRECTORS OF THE RECORDING FOR THE BLIND

Mr. KRENTS. I will keep it very brief, Mr. Lehman. I know that you have a quorium call. I just would very briefly like to speak to the services from the standpoint of the recipient.

I became aware of the Recording for the Blind when I entered. Harvard College. During my earlier years, I had relied primarily upon braille. However, when one gets to the college, to the graduate school years, and eventually when he becomes a professional, the amount of reading is such that braille becomes not nearly as useful.

Also, many of the books are simply not available in braille. It became clear that something had to be done. I was falling farther and farther behind my sighted classmates. It was at this time that we heard about Recording for the Blind.

Through master libraries, it seems 9 out of the 10 books I needed that were already on tape were sent to me within 1 week. Those books which were not already available were farmed out to their units around the country, and volunteers put these books onto tapes.

One point that should be emphasized is that, for instance, I myself am an attorney in a law firm in Washington. All my books and records for the blind at law schools were read by lawyers, so volunteers who were used on the books are people conversant in the field in which they helped.

There is no doubt in any mind that I would not have been able to sucessfully get through Harvard College, Harvard Law School, and an extra year at Oxford University, to get a master's degree, had it not been for the remarkable work done by Recording for the Blind, and its 4,000 volunteers.

As you are no doubt aware, Congress presently appropriates a sizable amount of money to the Library of Congress to assist the talking books program, which produces recreational material for the blind. It is a fine service.

But, what Recording for the Blind does, what the talking book program does, is rather compliment it and supplement it, and I would hope that you and the other members of your committee would look at this item and feel that this is something that you could support, and support enthusiastically.

[Prepared statement of Harold Krents follows:]

PREPARED STATEMENT OF HAROLD KRENTS, MEMBER OF THE BOARD OF DIRECTORS OF RECORDING FOR THE BLIND, INC.

Mr. Chairman, I support wholeheartedly the comments of Mr. Carothers on behalf of this legislation and I would just like to add a personal word or two about what Recording For The Blind has done for me.

During my elementary and high school years, I managed to go through the Scarsdale, New York, school system, thanks to a group of dedicated volunteer braille transcribers and a very committed family. However, shortly after my arrival at Harvard College it became abundantly clear that my future academic career was in serious jeopardy. For one thing, most of the text books which I had been assigned by my freshman professors were unavailable in braille, and for another, the process of reading braille is rather slow. At best, a blind student reads at one-third the speed of his sighted counterpart. Therefore, although studying through braille was possible given the short assignments in high school, it was out of the question given the overwhelming amount of reading required at the college level.

I was falling farther and farther behind and actually considering dropping out of Harvard when my family heard of Recording For The Blind. This outstanding organization, then and now, provided exclusively educational material free of charge on tapes. Through the use of Recording For The Blind and its extensive master tape library, combined with its high-speed duplicating equipment, the necessary textbooks were furnished within a matter of days.

I can truthfully say I would not have been able to attend Harvard College, graduate cum laude in English, and go through Harvard Law School had it not been for the marvelous work of the Recording For The Blind. It is through this organization that tens of thousands of blind students and professionals are able to function on a level of equality with their peers.

On behalf of Recording For The Blind I would like to express our appreciation for the opportunity to appear today.

Mr. LEHMAN. Thank you. Of course, you have no problem with me, and I will continue to do all I can. I just want to compliment you on your brief but certainly very meaningful statement of the needs and the results of this kind of a program.

Mr. Gashel.

STATEMENT OF JAMES GASHEL, CHIEF, WASHINGTON OFFICE, THE NATIONAL FEDERATION OF THE BLIND

Mr. GASHEL. Thank you, Mr. Lehman.

My name is James Gashel. I am chief of the Washington office of the National Federation of the Blind.

In 1940, the National Federation of the Blind was formed to serve as a vehicle through which the blind may speak for themselves.

Indeed, a quotation on our publication, "The Braille Monitor," which is produced monthly on record and ink print and in braille, states the following: "The National Federation of the Blind is not an organization speaking for the blind, it is the blind speaking for themselves."

In that capacity, then, Mr. Chairman, we come before you today to discuss with you the request of Recording for the Blind for certain funding to provide for an expansion and improvement of its programs.

Noting the time and hearing the quorum call, I am going to do the best I can to summarize the statement I have here, Mr. Chairman, and ask that my full statement be printed in the record.

Mr. LEHMAN. Without objection.

Mr. GASHEL. Many of us who are blind use the services of Recording for the Blind. As a matter of fact, many members of the National Federation of the Blind have been the happy beneficiaries of the services provided by this fine agency, Recording for the Blind.

I, myself, as a college student, have used the services of Recording for the Blind and would certainly second everything Mr. Krents has said about the good work of the organization.

For many blind persons, children, students, adults, or senior citizens, immediate access to the great world of books remains a dream, a goal to be reached.

We are giving in the National Federation of the Blind tremendous increased priority to trying to find ways of fulfilling this need.

During last spring, when we had the round of appropriations for legislative matters, I appeared in both the House and the Senate to support vigorously appropriations, additional appropriations, for the Library of Congress, the Division of the Blind and Physically Handicapped, and this year that division got its largest single budget increase, nearly $4 million over its fiscal 1975 appropriation. This we are very pleased about.

The National Federation of the Blind has recently created a committee to deal with the problems of library services which we face. The chairman of this committee is Mrs. Florence Grannis. Mrs. Grannis is director of the largest library for the blind in the entire world and is well-known by all librarians in the field of work with the blind for her advocacy on the part of consumers.

What we believe is simply this: We believe each and every blind person should have available to him library services which are at least as good as that which he could get if he were sighted and lived in a good library area.

As I have indicated, this is not yet a reality, but we are going to make it so, if we can.

Certainly, we are advocates for increased resources devoted to libraries, and we are also cognizant of the fact that the scarce resources devoted to libraries and recording services must be spent in the most cost effective manner possible.

Any unnecessary expenditures, any frivolous expenses, any wastage whatsoever, must be cut from the budget.

Mr. Chairman, today we are a bit concerned with some of the work of Recording for the Blind from that standpoint. Let me expand on that. While we reognize the need of Recording for the Blind, for adequate financing, and while we ourselves as blind people are the beneficiaries of Recording for the Blind's worthwhile services, our support for financing for Recording for the Blind as set forth in H.R. 10999 is of some necessity conditional.

RFB, we feel, if funded by the legislation, must agree to allocate its financial resources entirely to meeting the reading needs of the blind; that is, to putting books in the hands of the blind readers.

Specifically, Mr. Chairman, we object to continued expenditures on the part of RFB for accreditation by the National Accreditation. Council for Agencies Serving the Blind & Visually Handicapped, usually referred to by the blind as NAC.

We object to this because of a number of things, primarily because of the serious weaknesses within the accreditation body, NAC itself. NAC has also served, in our judgment, as a force for maintaining traditionalism and a force for stifling change and improvement in the field of work with the blind.

NAC, in its operations, has failed to keep pace with the efforts of the subcommittee and of the Congress to insure that handicapped individuals will have all the rights and privileges available to sighted persons and the nonhandicapped in this society.

Let me give you just a couple examples of what I am talking about. Let us take the field of education, which is a field over which this committee maintains oversight and jurisdiction.

The National Accreditation Council in 1965 prepared standards to deal with approval of educational services to blind children and youth attending residential secondary schools for the blind. The standards which were developed by NAC in 1965 are the standards which are still existent and still applied to the schools now nearly 11 years later. Mr. Chairman, you and the members of this subcommittee know from a firsthand experience the tremendous changes which have occurred in the field of education of the handicapped because you all wrote a lot of those changes in this subcommittee.

Tremendous changes have occurred, but one Office of Education observer who recently observed NAC, in its onsight inspection process, has indicated in his findings that the NAC onsight review team at Oklahoma School for the Blind evidenced no knowledge whatsoever of the title VI (b), the Education of Handicapped Act amendments of 1974, at the time, until the passage of Public Law 94-142, the most significant legislation affecting education of the handicapped.

What we are saying is that the standards themselves are out of date. Let's move specifically to library services and the standards which apply to an organization such as Recording for the Blind.

Here, too, in the area of library srevices, the National Accreditation Council standards are woefully out of date. The southern librarians, in a conference held last spring, passed a resolution which I have attached to my statement, Mr. Chairman, and ask that it be printed as an attachment.

Mr. LEHMAN. Without objection, it will be included.

Mr. GASHEL. Thank you.

The resolution reads, in part:

We do not feel that the existing NAC standards are relevant, to present day library services, which has advanced greatly since NAC standards were published about ten years ago.

Incidentally, Mr. Chairman, the resolution was passed without a dissenting vote.

It is, then, in our judgment that it is not in the best interests of the blind who get the service from organizations such as Recording for the Blind, for organizations such as Recording for the Blind to be accredited by the National Accreditation Council for Agencies Serving the Blind and Visually Handicapped.

The NAC agencies, of which there are now 58, are almost without exception among the worst of the lot and, incidentally, Recording for the Blind is an exception.