INSIGHT

A MONTHLY NEWSLETTER OF THE SPECIAL NEEDS LIBRARY OF NORTHEAST GEORGIA

The Special Needs Library of Northeast Georgia is a part of your public library and the National Library Service for the Blind and Physically Handicapped, serving Banks, Barrow, Clarke, Elbert, Franklin, Greene, Gwinnett, Habersham, Hancock, Hart, Jackson, Jasper, Madison, Morgan, Oconee, Oglethorpe, Putnam, Rabun, Stephens, Walton and White counties. We do not endorse any product or service mentioned in this newsletter.

Phone: 800-531-2063, 706-613-3655

Email:specialneedslibrary@athenslibrary.org

Staff: Stacey Chandler, Lavern Gordon, Claudia Markov, Pete Hayek

November 2002

Twice Baked Sweet Potatoes

Ingredients:

Directions:

  1. Preheat oven to 350 degrees F (175 degrees C.)
  2. Rub sweet potato skins with salad oil. Wrap potatoes in aluminum foil and bake in preheated oven for 1 hour, or until soft.
  3. Meanwhile, in a large bowl combine cream cheese, brown sugar, margarine, vanilla, salt and pepper.
  4. Cut potatoes in half and scoop flesh into the bowl with the other ingredients. Mix well and fold in walnuts. Spoon mixture into potato skins.
  5. Bake for 5 minutes or until heated through.
Makes 12 servings. ENJOY!!!!

Announcements

Reminder that the Special Needs Library will be closed Thursday, November 28, 2002, for Thanksgiving. The staff here wish you a safe and Happy Thanksgiving!!!

Attention Guide Dog Users

A chapter of Guide Dog Users Inc. has been organized here in Georgia. It is called Georgia Guide Dog Users. They will have their next meeting in Helen, GA on Sunday, November 10, at the Helen Library Community Room, 90 Pete's Park Road, at 1:00 p.m. For overnight accommodations call Super 8 Motel at (706) 878-2191. Representative Tom Rice of Roswell will be present to read the bill he is trying to get passed in the Georgia Legislature that protects guide dog teams from being attacked by loose dogs. For more information call Secretary Diane Healy at (706) 399-9456 or email at ldhealy@negia.net.

Mathematics Products for the Visually Impaired

HenterMath.com is developing software to teach mathematics to blind or visually impaired people and others who are print-impaired. A type of "virtual pencil" does the job of the pencil, moving to the right spot on the program, guided by the user, and inputting the answers that the user selects. It also reads the problem out loud (user must provide the brain). The current prototype handles addition, subtraction, multiplication and division. Future versions will do higher levels of math. For more information go to HenterMath.com.

Tape Ministries

Tape Ministries NW has more than 900 Christian oriented books and other reading materials on cassette to lend to the blind and visually impaired. All of the Library's lending is done by mail, free of charge. To request a large print or taped listing of the library's selection and for information on their lending policies; call 206-243-7377; write TAPE MINISTRIES NW, 122 SW 150th ST, BURIEN WA 98166; or e-mail them at tmnw@tapeministries.org.

Bookshare.org

Bookshare.org is an online subscription service that enables U.S. residents to access a shared collection of scanned digital books. This service was first launched in February 2002, and already has close to 11,000 books available for download to subscribing members. To register for this service, you must provide proof of disability, and pay the $25 sign up fee and $50 annual subscription fee. Books are available for download in digital grade 2 Braille or a text-only version of the NISO/DAISY format, for which a software player is provided with membership. For more information, please visit the website at www.bookshare.org, or email info@bookshare.org. You may also contact Bookshare.org at 480 California Ave., Suite 201, Palo Alto, CA 94306-1609. Their fax number is 650-475-1066.

New Descriptive Videos

We recently added these new titles to our descriptive video collection. Please call us to receive a listing of all our descriptive videos.

Descriptive videos are movies that have been described by a narrator for the visually impaired. During the pauses of the movie script, a narrator will describe action and scenery to assist the visually impaired to visualize the movie that the sighted viewers are seeing.

REMINDER!!!

We are now recording the Gwinnett Daily Post for our patrons in the Gwinnett county area. Let us know if you want to be added to our subscription list by calling 800-531-2063. You can email us at specialneedslibrary@athenslibrary.org or write to us at 2025 Baxter St., Athens, GA 30606 also.

Bobby WorldWide Approved