New Mexico State Library for the Blind and Print Disabled geared toward helping make books accessible to all

There’s a library in the state with a targeted audience. It’s the New Mexico State Library for the Blind and Print Disabled, which is linked to the National Library Service for the Blind and Print Disabled (LBPD).

As a network library, it offers a free program for New Mexicans with a disability that prevents them from reading standard printed books, according to its website. The disability could be blindness, some other visual impairment, or a physical or reading disability.

The library provides patrons audiobooks — and magazines — digitally and by mail. If one uses the mail, the program supplies a digital player and digital cartridges.

The players are loaned free to patrons for as long as they are in the program.

Program patrons with the technical know-how can also digitally download audiobooks to their smartphone for playback.

All of the titles are available as downloads from the National Library Service’s Braille and Audio Reading Download (BARD) website and BARD mobile smartphone app for Android and iOS.

More than 160,000 book titles are available to listen to in the program, and that number is growing at the rate of 10,000 a year.

Of that total, more than 7,100 are audiobooks in Spanish and another 200 are in braille.

John Mugford is the long-time head of New Mexico’s Library for the Blind and Print Disabled, which is under the State Library.

Mugford estimated that between 2,000 and 2,500 individuals are registered in New Mexico’s Library for the Blind and Print Disabled program.

“Our collection is akin to a public library, with the exception that we don’t offer textbooks. We have popular fiction, Westerns, romance, historical fiction, mysteries. Any genre you can think of, we pretty much have it,” he said.

Mugford estimated that the vast majority of the patrons live in rural areas of the state, and most of the audiobook distribution is through the mail.

The state’s network library has a staff member who visits retirement communities and attends special events such as conferences for the aging in an attempt to reach out to those who may be interested in applying for the program, he said.

Most of the books in the state program are supplied by the Library of Congress, but the New Mexico State Library for the Blind and Print Disabled, which was started in 1967, also produces audiobooks on local subjects and by local authors.

Go to nmstatelibrary.org/lbpd/eligibility for an explanation of eligibility requirements for individuals and institutions that want to qualify to receive or download audiobooks.

Readers are invited to complete and download the appropriate eligibility application, whether in English or in Spanish. There are also separate English language applications for those under 18 years old and for institutions.

The page for the various applications is nmstatelibrary.org/apply-to-lbpd.

Applications must be signed by a certifying authority, meaning a medical or educational professional who attests that the applicant has a qualifying disability that makes the person or institution eligible for the program.

For more information about the program, contact the New Mexico State Library for the Blind and Print Disabled, which is located at 1209 Camino Carlos Rey, Santa Fe. The program’s phone numbers are (toll-free) 800-456-5515 and 505-476-9770. Its email address is sl.lbpd@state.nm.us.