Education Resource Centre

Mitra Jyothi’s Education Resource Center provides a varied collection of accessible text & reference books, magazines, fiction & non-fiction books in multiple languages and formats with the primary objective of providing reading material to those who cannot read printed matter with the help of their vision. The “Digital Accessible Books Production” (DABP), “Talking Book Library” (TBL) and “Braille Transcription Centre” (BTC) are the Programs that cater to these requirements. With this, the need of both a young school child who will find Braille books more useful and adults who may switch to audio libraries and text to speech conversion technology for faster and more efficient reading, is addressed.

Hundreds of volunteers lend their time and voice and record books for us. Keeping up with technology trends, Mitra Jyothi has digitized a significant portion of the TBL. With newer and newer technology available for text to speech conversion and the remarkable improvement in the quality of audio output, Mitra Jyothi constantly works on process improvements and necessary trend adaptations.

Most of these books are getting uploaded in Bookshare, Sugamya Pustakalaya to make it available online for a vaster group across pan India.

Call us or register online by clicking here to enrol to the library membership!

The Digital Accessible Books Production (DABP) and Talking Book Library (TBL) at Mitra Jyothi is a pioneer in the creation of Audio and Digital Accessible Books in south India for use by people with disabilities. With a collection of 4000 books, it has a wide outreach and deep rooted impact. Books are available in Kannada, English and Hindi. Our library members can borrow any number of books from our library at any time. Any specific books needed by members but not available in our library collection will be picked up for production on request.
  •  eText: eText version of any book will make it readable by using any screen reading software like NVDA (Non Visual Desktop Access)
  • DAISY (Digital Accessible Information System): DAISY is a digital audio format. It designed to be a complete audio substitute for print material and is specifically designed for use by people with visual disabilities and dyslexia.
  • Braille: Hard copy prints in Braille
The Library has close to 4000 individual and 80+ institutional members across India to whom thousands of cassettes and audio CDs have been distributed over the years. These members effectively utilize about 4000 “Master” digital audio books whose copies are made as CDs and distributed to members. Apart from automated text to speech conversion of books, most of the books in regional languages are converted to the digital format with the help of volunteers who read the books.
The Braille Transcription Centre converts school text books/educational books/magazines/specific articles/selected items of interest into electronic format and prints it in Braille format. With two NV Interpoint 55 Braille Embossers, the Braille Transcription Centre is able to handle large volume print jobs. The Braille Transcription Centre also does tactile printing in colour and embossing visiting cards in Braille. Braille Printing We print in Braille in English and other Indian languages. Lakhs of pages have been printed since the commission of our Braille Transcription Centre in late 2015. Printing & distributing school text books in Braille and creating Braille book libraries in schools has been the key contribution of Mitra Jyothi’s Braille Transcription Centre. Braille books are especially helpful to school students, who are either visually impaired or have low vision. Mitra Jyothi has taken up the big project of printing text books in Braille for students of class 1 through class 10 (Karnataka State syllabus) for both English and Kannada medium. Providing text books in Braille free of cost to 40+ schools/institutions for the blind across Karnataka has been our flag-ship project since 2017! Along with text books, books of various kinds including but not limited to fiction, non-fiction, inspiration life stories, cookery, sports, leaders, health & hygiene, legal rights and other topics are being transcribed into Braille in Kannada and English for children of all age groups. These books shall be used to build Braille Libraries across the various schools for the blind in the state of Karnataka. Tactile Embossing The Braille Transcription Centre also has a tactile embosser that can print pictures and diagrams in tactile. Tactile Pictures are images that use raised surfaces so that a visually impaired person can feel them. They are used as teaching aids to help children with visual disability learn about the form of various objects from fruits, vegetables, basic objects, and animals to more complex maps, scientific diagrams and paintings. If used effectively Tactile Embossing is a very useful tool and will be a game changer in the lives of people with vision impairment. It opens up the world of Science and Math education for the visually disabled. Right now other than basic concepts in primary school, the visually disabled are deprived of science and math education due to limitations of comprehension of diagrams, figures and graphs which are an essential part of math and science education. Tactile diagrams can be used as teaching aids to help children with visual disability learn about the form of various objects from fruits, vegetables, basic objects, animals to more complex maps and paintings. Tactile diagrams help teachers who are visually impaired to conceptualize and teach more effectively Tactile printing in colour a big boon to people with low vision Visiting Card Embossing The Braille Transcription Centre also has a visiting card embosser. Braille embossing done on visiting cards make them accessible to the visually impaired. We undertake visiting card embossing work for individuals and organizations. Call us to make your visiting cards accessible to all!
  • It opens up the world of Science and Math education for the visually disabled. Right now other than basic concepts in primary school, the visually disabled are deprived of science and math education due to limitations of comprehension of diagrams, figures and graphs which are an essential part of math and science education.
  • Tactile diagrams can be used as teaching aids to help children with visual disability learn about the form of various objects from fruits, vegetables, basic objects, animals to more complex maps and paintings.
  • Tactile diagrams help teachers who are visually impaired to conceptualize and teach more effectively
  • Tactile printing in colour a big boon to people with low vision
 
Our audio and braille publications are very popular with our beneficiaries. We have two monthly audio publications in Kannada namely Sanchaya and Spardha Shrunkala and two Braille publications, Jnaana Samhitha, a monthly magazine in Kannada and Insight, a quarterly magazine in English. Click here to subscribe to our publications. Audio Publications Sanchaya provides useful information on a variety of topics, including current affairs, health & hygiene, travel & culture, entertainment & sports and much more. More than 280 editions of Sanchaya have been produced over the past 20 years and so far, and more than 5000 copies have been distributed. Various volunteers have put in innumerable number of hours to make Sanchaya possible. Our volunteers Smt. Indu Nadig, Smt. Amruta Srinivasan, Sri. Nityananda have all been key contributors for making Sanchaya a reality. Since November 2017, our volunteer Sri. Hanumantha Rao Kaujalagi who is a well-known literary and theatre personality in the world of Kannada & Culture, is the chief editor of Sanchaya. Click here to listen to an audio clip of Sanchaya. Spardha Shrunkhala, the audio magazine in Kannada helps prepare visually impaired students for job oriented competitive examinations. More than 3000 copies of Spardha Shrunkala have been distributed since it was started in 2014 and hundreds of students have benefitted from it. Our volunteer Smt. Sharada Rao is the chief editor of Spardha Shrunkala. Click here to listen to an audio clip of Spardha Shrunkala. Recent addition to this is a new audio Magazine named “Industry Mitra” during March 2019. Every issue of “Industry Mitra” talks about one specific industry. So far we have covered Banking, IT, Media & Entertainment, Tourism & Hospitality and Entrepreneurship sectors with more focus towards persons with disabilities. Our volunteer Mr. Manik Mahajan is the chief editor of Industry Mitra. Braille Publications Jnaana Samhitha is our Kannada monthly magazine in Braille. Jnaana Samhitha contains various articles on science & technology, culture & lifestyle, health, humor, travel, cooking & recipes, short stories, inspirational stories and much more. Our volunteer Smt. Sharada Rao is the chief editor of Jnaana Samhitha. Insight is our English quarterly magazine in Braille. Insight is a magazine in which most of the articles are authored by and edited by people with visual impairment! It is an interesting pot-pourri of articles on various topics authored for the blind, by the blind. Many thanks to our volunteer Ms. Payal Kapoor for the initial 6 issues of Insight. Mr. Justin is the current editor of Insight. Radio Udaan is our partner in this regard and helping us to extend our reach in northern part of the country. All subscribers will receive new issues of the magazines on a regular basis for the subscribed period in the form of audio CDs or Braille books which will be delivered to their homes via India Post. Click here to subscribe to our publications.
Accessible reading material to people with print disabilities
Education Resource Centre Mitra Jyothi
Braille Transcription Centre Mitra Jyothi
Publication from Education Resource Centre