Complete Issue - Vol 66, No 3/4 (2008)

marks the 200 th anniversary of the birth of Louis Braille.Braille became blind in one eye at the age of four while working at his father's shop.Braille was sent to the Royal Institute for the Blind in Paris for his studies.In 1821 an officer in the French Army, Charles Barbier, shared with Braille a secret "night writing" code system the army had devised for communicating in the dark at night without speaking.It was this series of raised dots that Braille at the age of fifteen in 1824, that he turned into the now famous system of writing and reading.Braille taught his system at the Institute until his death from tuberculosis at the age of forty-three in 1852.The North Carolina Library for the Blind and Physically Handicapped (NCLBPH) circulates materials for individuals who cannot use regular printed materials.Their materials are in large print, Braille and audio formats and are available at no cost.The Library publishes a newsletter Tar Heel Talk which can be viewed here: http://statelibrary.dcr.state.nc.us/lbph/ THT.HTM#COM (Tar Heel Talk is available on Braille and cassette).This fall the Library will, a little earlier than the Braille anniversary celebration, celebrate their 50 th birthday.NCLBPH was founded in September 1958 by the Sir Walter Lions Club of Raleigh with the help of the Raleigh Host Lions Club and the NC Lions Association for the Blind.The following year the library operation was taken over by the State Library and by 1960 had six employees and 28,000 books loaned to 1,000 patrons.The staff now numbers thirty and the library circulates a half million books to over 28,000 patrons.So much individual mail is handled that NCLBPH has its own zip code.