Catholic Books through the Library of Congress

Are you or your loved one signed up for the Library of Congress National Library Service? If you are eligible, you can borrow books on tape or books in Braille. These are sent to you and returned in special easy packaging, free of a need for postage. In other words, if you qualify, there is zero cost for this home library service. If you are blind or visually impaired, and you are not yet signed up for this service, you can go to the Library of Congress website to find out where and how to register with your regional provider.

There is a search page if you want to request particular books. I put in "Catholic" and "saint" as keywords, and did not come up with anything that looked like what I was looking for. However, when I put in the title of a specific Catholic book, the book description popped right up. So it is worth searching for the titles we like, in order to see if they are available.

The book I looked up, by the way, was The Story of the Trapp Family Singers, a book which I recently reviewed at my daily blog. The ordering number for recorded cassette is RC07047 and for Braille is BRA13890.

For those who are here looking for audio materials for someone who has dyslexia or another learning disability, I apologize, as anything from the Library of Congress National Library Service is only available for those who are visually impaired or have a physical disability. The Library of Congress website says: "The following groups of individuals are not automatically eligible: those who have learning disabilities, dyslexia, attention deficit disorder, attention deficit-hyperactivity disorder, chronic-fatigue syndrome, autism, functional illiteracy, or mental retardation, unless there is a specific accompanying visual or physical handicap."

So, in the future, if I label material as being available through "Library of Congress" or "National Library Service" that availability only applies to those who fit those eligibility restrictions. For those who qualify, this can be a treasure hunt. Under this blog Label of "Library of Congress", I will try to share with you various Catholic books as I find them available there. Again, if you have a discovery, please share with us, too.