PITTSBURGH — In Pittsburgh, the Carnegie Library system is vast and helps hundreds of thousands of people get connected with books. But in one library building, a group of volunteers is working hard to help a different sort of book-lover.
The Carnegie Library for the Blind and Physically Handicapped serves more than 15-thousand people across Pennsylvania. It's the only library in the state where volunteers create audio recordings of books, then edit those recordings to be shipped out and delivered personally to readers who cannot see or cannot turn book pages on their own. Readers like volunteer Diane Barati's father.
"He was never much of a reader, but it helps him, sort of, to escape his current situation he might be in," Barati said. "It takes his mind into some other realm."
The library circulates about one million books a year, but says it wants more people across the state to know this free service is available to them and could change their lives.
"We get thank you notes constantly, this is such a meaningful service for people who use it," says Library Services Administrator Mark Lee.
The library says there are a lot of people in the state that could use this service but may not know about it. CLICK HERE to sign up to get your own listening device and start requesting audio books.
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