05/09/2025
Earlier this year, a PBS production team visited NLS to collect information for a short video documenting how the creation of “talking books” for blind readers in the mid-1930s led to the audiobook revolution in the publishing industry. Tamara Rorie, head of the NLS Patron Engagement Section, was interviewed on camera about the first audiobooks, which were developed by the American Foundation for the Blind (AFB) in partnership with the Library of Congress. Rorie also talked about the evolution of NLS audiobook formats, from long-playing records to today’s digital downloads, and her own experiences as a lifelong NLS patron. The 6½-minute video, now available on the American Experience | PBS YouTube page, also includes interviews with AFB’s Tony Stephens and Audible’s Diana Dapito. It’s one of short four videos in “The Curb Cut Effect,” an American Experience series that explores how adaptations originally made to improve accessibility for people with disabilities—such as audiobooks, closed captioning and the addition of easy-grip handles to kitchen tools—now are used by, and benefit, everyone.
Links to multiple versions of the video, which include one with extended audio description and one with on-screen ASL interpretation, are in the first comment below.
[Image: The PBS production team with Tamara Rorie at NLS on February 10.]
