Library for the Blind

(also Central Republic Library; RTsBS), in Moscow, a special library collection of a general nature.

The Library for the Blind is the state repository of literature published in the USSR in Russian braille, as well as “talking books” (phonograph records). This library was founded in 1954, and as of Jan. 1, 1970, its holdings numbered more than 200,000 items, including the following: more than 127,000 books printed in braille type, more than 45,000 books printed in flat type, and approximately 24,000 phonograph records. The library possesses a unique collection of manuscript books in relief type and literature on the study of typhlology. In the reading room of the library there are compartments for the individual reading aloud of the literature printed in flat type; group listening sessions are arranged providing news of books, periodicals, and talking books. By means of individual reading cards, mobile libraries, and points for circulating books at enterprises and at raion primary organizations of the All-Russian Society of Blind People, as well as by furnishing books to readers in their homes, the RTsBS serves more than 9,000 sightless citizens who live in Moscow and in Moscow Oblast.

The RTsBS carries out methodological guidance for a network of special libraries for the blind in the RSFSR (68 libraries, 63 branches, and 896 bookmobiles, 109 boardingschool libraries for blind and weak-sighted children). It also publishes catalogs of new literature for the blind, bibliographical aids, and materials for the Calendar of Famous Dates in the Lives and Work of Blind People.