American Printing House for the Blind

The American Printing House for the Blind (APH) (Louisville, Kentucky) was founded in 1858. It is the oldest institution of its kind in the United States and the world's largest company devoted solely to creating products for people who are visually impaired. APH promotes independence of blind and visually impaired persons by providing special media, tools, and materials needed for education and life.

In 1950, under the guidance of Director Carl Lappin, the APH established its centralized listing of accessible books on index cards to facilitate the location and provision of special titles for the visually impaired and to eliminate duplication of effort among producers. In the 1980s and early 1990s this information resided on a mainframe computer. Named in honor of Lappin, "CARL ET AL" served its purpose for many years by providing state institutions responsible for locating materials for the blind with direct dial-in access to the database. High maintenance costs, the inability of the mainframe to be "speech-friendly," and the desire to put information in the hands of the people who needed it most by providing access to their flagship database on the Internet and by direct dial-in led APH to choose STAR.

APH migrated the data from the mainframe to the Unix-based platform on which STAR runs by transferring MARC records (the standard library record format) on tape to STAR. The records were quickly loaded into the new system called Louis (for Louis Braille). In a story entitled "Database Offers Visually Impaired a World of Books," the Louisville Courier-Journal described how the new system made the APH the nation's largest computerized clearinghouse, and allowed the APH to serve all their users.

Louis is a unique database of materials in media accessible to people who are visually impaired or blind. This database provides a quick, complete, centralized method of locating these accessible materials. It provides complete bibliographic and location information. The 135,000 items listed include Braille books, large-type books and pamphlets, music scores, electronic books, sound recordings, and tactile graphics. Site visitors can search Louis by ISBN, title, author, publisher, copyright year, subject, or medium, and they can place orders or request services online.

Hundreds of agencies across North America (volunteer, government, non-profit, and commercial) report their holdings to the APH, and Louis is updated daily to provide the most current information. Louis can be searched at no charge; it does not require a password.

URL: http://www.aph.org/louis.htm

The Fred's Head database is a source of tips and techniques for and by blind or visually impaired individuals. It is designed to provide people with useful information on how to do things that interest them. This includes records about technology, recreation, daily living skills, orientation and mobility, and more. Fred's Head also includes information on where to find adaptive products and provides links to interesting Web sites. Fred's Head is a unique source of information, since blind or visually impaired individuals have written most of its records.

URL: http://www.aph.org/fh/index.html