Factsheet – Mongolian DAISY Talking Book Center

Mongolia: Ulaanbaatar City Public Library (UPL)

 
Library takes the lead in migrating books to a digital format suited for the blind

   
BRIEF DESCRIPTION

Providing educational resources for the blind is made even more difficult in a country such as Mongolia with very remote rural communities. The current services are primarily available in the capital. To address this issue, the Ulaanbaatar City Public Library (UPL) project will produce DAISY Digital Talking Books and set up a national network of libraries for the blind in order to ensure access from all regions of Mongolia.




THE NEED

There are 130,000 people with visual impairment in Mongolia, of which 9,400 are partially or and inflation as well as harsh Mongolian freezing cold weather conditions, make these people's lives even more difficult. Mongolia has 21 aimags (provinces) and over 300 soums (counties). All of them have local public libraries and one librarian, but none of the rural libraries has materials for the visually impaired. Braille book printing is rear and audio book publishing is suitable.



TECHNOLOGY

This project will migrate their talking book collection from analog to digital format on DAISY (a widely adopted internationally standard) to provide better access to a larger stock of information and to reduce the need for human readers for the blind. DAISY book reading equipment will be provided to the public libraries in 21 aimags. Once the first stock of digital books has been created, the librarians from all the provinces will be trained at the DAISY Digital Talking Book Center, UPL, during the National Book Fair in Mid-November. Once the new technology is introduced in province centers, the further training on the better use and dissemination of DAISY-made audio materials for the 21 province center and 300 county libraries will be continued via Internet seminars.


 
PARTNERS

The Mongolian National Federation of the Blind (MNFB) is the major project partner. MFNB is a non-profit, non-governmental organization established in 1978 that has worked with the Ulaanbaatar City Public Library since 2004, and will provide the major expert for introducing DAISY in Mongolia.