France: Braille books accessible for the first time at the price of a classic book

A woman reads a book written in Braille at the Center de transcription et d'édition braille (CTEB), the main Braille publishing and printing house and bookstore in France, in Toulouse, southwestern France, on January 3, 2023, the eve of World Braille Day.

AFP - LIONEL BONAVENTURE

Text by: Lena Thébaud Follow

5 mins

This Wednesday, January 4, World Braille Day, more than 2,000 books in Braille were made available at the single book price, which until then had only been applied to so-called classic books, which can be found in bookstores.

An initiative that allows books to be less expensive and therefore more accessible to people with visual impairments.

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According to estimates by the

, at least 2.2 billion people have visual impairment affecting near vision or distance vision worldwide.

In France, the French

estimates that 1.7 million people are affected by a vision disorder (207,000 blind and 932,000 average visually impaired).

So this announcement made by the

(CTEB) on the reduction in the price of books, on World Braille Day, already sounds like a victory.

The law on the single price of the book of August 10, 1981 - the Lang law - provides that the same book is sold at the same price to the end customer, up to a discount of 5% that each retailer can practice.

But this single price, also called the bookseller's price, did not apply to books in Braille.

“

,” explains Adeline Coursant, director of the CTEB.

The CTEB has the largest production capacity for Braille books in France and also supplies certain media libraries abroad - in Canada, Belgium, Switzerland, and in certain African countries in French-speaking Africa -.

But the cost of producing a single book is 700 euros and it takes three weeks in total between the time of transcription, proofreading and printing of the book.

“

, ”recalls Adeline Coursant.

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The financial means necessary to sustain this unique price

If the announcement of better access to braille books sounds like a victory, it is a short-term victory.

Since its creation in 1989, the CTEB has always fought to find funding in order to produce more books in Braille, “

”.

But it is only thanks to an associative fund within the CTEB that the accessibility of books in Braille at a bookseller's price has been made possible.

A risky bet for the association since it considers that it only has the means to publish the books with their own funds for two years.

After which, she hopes to be able to continue thanks to multiple aids: “

”, specifies the director of the CTEB.

Vincent Michel, honorary president of the Federation of the Blind in France, insists on the exorbitant selling price of books in Braille before the establishment of this single price: "

This means that a visually impaired reader would pay the 80 euros out of pocket, since no shopping aid exists for blind readers.

At such a price, these readers could not therefore afford to buy many books a year, where they will be able to obtain more thanks to the bookseller price now applied to books in Braille.

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.

So it's an "

," says Adeline Coursant.

But better access to culture through books depends not only on their selling price, but also on the diversity of the books on offer.

We are happy: from today, the #braille catalog of the CTEB can be acquired by French-speaking visually impaired people at the #PrixUnique du #livre!

#Visual Impaired #Blind #Reading #VisualHandicap #Reading #Books #Handicap https://t.co/qi3H0CaAq5

— Cteb |

Braille Transcription & Publishing Center (@CtebToulouse) January 4, 2023

Enable better access to knowledge 

More than 100,000 books are produced and printed in France, but only 3% are transcribed into Braille, a very limited choice for readers with visual impairments.

A lack of diversity of books that the CTEB and the French Federation of the Blind deplore with one voice.

The CTEB has a catalog of 2,000 books in Braille, but this presupposes a difficult choice for the selection of books.

Obviously, the books which receive prizes and which are part of the literary returns are published by the CTEB, but each book sold in ten or twenty copies on average, because of the price.

A figure far from that of sales of classic books, estimated at 422 million copies in 2020 by the

.

Access to books for all is essential, since this allows access to knowledge: "

 ", recalls Vincent Michel.

For the honorary president of the Federation of the Blind of France, reading remains one of the keys to success at school and university, yet many books and specialized works are not transcribed into Braille.

“

.

»

A further step towards access to culture has therefore been taken for visually impaired readers, but the CTEB, like the Federation of the Blind in France, hope in the future to be able to produce more and more books.

And in the long term, that almost all the books published in bookstores be accessible in Braille - in paper or digital version -, in large print or in audio recordings.

Selling books at market price, "this eliminates the discriminatory phenomenon vis-à-vis blind and partially sighted people who had to pay more" for the same book, specifies @gendron_bruno, President of @Aveugles_France

— BLIND FROM FRANCE (@Blind_France) January 4, 2023

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