Library for the Blind

Categories / Science. Education/Libraries
LIBRARY FOR THE BLIND of St. Petersburg State Committee for Culture of St. Petersburg Administration (8 Shamsheva Street), founded in 1927 as a library of the House of the Blind. Since 1956, the library functioned as the municipal library for the blind, acquiring its present name in 1995. Since 1993, the library enjoys a regional status as the Co-ordination Centre of Specialised Libraries of Russian North-West. The Library holds some 500,000 volumes, including point books and books printed in flat-bed press, "talking books" – audio materials, electronic editions, embossed printing and graphic aids, and a collection of books on typhlology. The electronic catalogue has some 190,000 records. Annually, the library serves about 11,000 people, lending over 500,000 volumes. The reading halls have individual reading cubicles and allow work with reciters; the information computer centre boasts state-of-the-art computer typhlo-technical facilities (electronic mail, Internet, Braille screens, reciters, Braille printers, etc.); the service department provides home delivery of necessary books. The library has eight branches located at enterprises of the All-Russian Society of the Blind and 62 library outlets; it also serves 5,000 residents of Leningrad Region. The library carries out methodological research.

E. V. Shapovalova. Shamsheva St./Saint Petersburg, city, house 8