Although libraries had been finding ways to serve blind patrons as early as the late nineteenth century, the passage of the Pratt-Smoot Act in 1931 was a game-changer. Congress appropriated funds to provide books for blind adults, and the National Library Service for the Blind and Physically Handicapped was established. The five decades after Pratt-Smoot saw many technological developments in recording machines and techniques, some coming hand in hand with innovations in the music industry: from record players, to reel-to-reel tapes, to cassette players. Inevitably, the "talking books" program would always be a compromise between the best possible product and the limitations of what was practical and economically feasible. Author Majeska synthesizes information from interviews and old files to compile a detailed history of talking books from 1932 to 1988--before computers changed the whole scene.
