History
Here's some quick history facts, but you can find out lots more about our pioneering work by reading about the fascinating
history of Talking Books.
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In 1920, RNIB began testing various formats to produce Talking Books for the many soldiers who were blinded in action during the First World War, and who found braille too difficult to learn on their return from the Front.
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In 1926, RNIB was experimenting with long-playing records, which could be played on gramophones.
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RNIB's Talking Book service began in 1935.
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The first Talking Books were recorded on 12-inch discs made from shellac. Each side lasted 25 minutes so that a typical book or novel would fit onto ten double sided records.
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The first titles sent out included 'The Murder of Roger Ackroyd' by Agatha Christie and 'Typhoon' by Joseph Conrad.
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Did you know that it was thanks to RNIB's trailblazing that LPs were eventually adopted by the music industry?
Statistics
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Just 7 per cent of titles published in the UK are available in a format blind and partially sighted people can read.
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Nearly 18,000 titles are available from RNIB's Talking Books library, making it the largest unabridged collection of audio books in the UK.
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Over 8,000 RNIB Talking Books are issued every day.
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Over 1.76 million Talking Books are issued every year.
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39,000 people borrow Talking Books from RNIB.
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1,181 new Talking Book titles were added in 2009-10.
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We have 174 professional narrators who record books for us.
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It takes five days on average to record an RNIB Talking Book.
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Over 75 million audio books have been issued to people with sight problems in the UK since 1935.
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On average, readers read three Talking Books each month, but some as many as one per day.
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The youngest Talking Book member is six years old and the oldest members are over 100.
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We have a growing number of Talking Books in other languages: Gujarati, Hindi, Punjabi, Urdu, Bengali, Welsh, Spanish, French.
Why just 7 per cent of titles are available
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Around 130,000 new books are published every year. RNIB is a charity, and as such, only has the capacity to transcribe a tiny proportion of those titles into accessible versions such as braille, audio and giant print.
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All ebook readers are fully accessible: they may allow you to use text to speech or an increased font size to access ebook content, but not the menus.
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Some publishers disable the text to speech on their ebooks, due to commercial and copyright concerns, so even if the ebook reader is accessible, the ebook itself may not be.
It may be many years before the vast amount of books are available in ebook format on accessible ebook readers. Even then, ebooks won't necessarily be suitable for all blind and partially sighted people, so we will continue to produce other accessible versions, such as hard copy braille, Talking Books and giant print until all book are produced in a format that blind and partially sighted people can read.
What it costs to run the Talking Book service
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It costs £4 million a year to run RNIB's Talking Book service.
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It costs £834,000 a year to run the Talking Book studios where specialist narrators bring books to life.
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It costs £520,700 a year to produce all the Talking Book players. These portable players use unique technology which enables people to navigate the Talking Books like real books; page by page, paragraph by paragraph, with a bookmark if you need it.
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It costs £20,00 to upgrade 80 players, allowing us to develop the service in the future.
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It can cost around £1,000 to provide a Talking Book and keep our library up to date.
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It can cost up to £2,500 to produce Talking Books in the realms of 'War and Peace' or 'Lord of the Rings'.
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All the books are posted free of charge to the reader's home under the Articles for the Blind scheme.
We ask people for a small annual subscription to join the Talking Book service, but this doesn't cover the full amount we need to run it.
We receive no government help and rely on fundraising and the generosity of people to meet this huge cost. Find out more about our Talking Books appeal and how your money helps.
Subscription costs
Subscription includes all the Talking Books you read throughout the year. There are two subscription options:
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Full loan annual subscription - this includes the loan of a DAISY player and costs £79.
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Books only annual subscription - this costs £50. You don't get a player with this subscription.
The Talking Book Service is part of the wider RNIB National Library service, which also provides books in braille and giant print. Find out more about joining the library.
Popular authors
Popular authors for adults include:
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Catherine Cookson
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Agatha Christie
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Danielle Steel
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Marian Keyes
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Jodie Picoult
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Josephine Cox
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Ian Rankin
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Andy McNab
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Stephen King
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John Grisham
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Dick Francis
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James Patterson
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Bill Bryson
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Dave Pelzer
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Patricia Cornwell
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Joanne Harris
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Lesley Pearse.
Popular authors for children include:
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Jacqueline Wilson
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Roald Dahl
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Enid Blyton
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Philip Pullman
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Darren Shan
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Anthony Horowitz
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Humphrey Carpenter
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Michael Morpurgo
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Philip Reeve
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C. S. Lewis
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J.K. Rowling
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Anne Fine
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Daisy Meadows
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Stephenie Meyer
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Robert Muchamore.
Popular titles
Examples of popular adult titles include:
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'Black Velvet Gown' by Catherine Cookson
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'Beach Road' by James Patterson
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'And Then There Were None' by Agatha Christie
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'The Chamber' by John Grisham
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'My Sister's Keeper' by Jodie Picoult
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'Amazing Grace' by Danielle Steel
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'The Gilded Cage' by Josephine Cox
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'A Short History of Nearly Everything' by Bill Bryson
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'All Creatures Great and Small' by James Herriott
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'Dead Souls' and other Inspector Rebus books by Ian Rankin
Some of the most of popular adult books for 2009/10 are 'Wolf Hall' by Hilary Mantel, 'Dear Fatty' by Dawn French and 'How to Cheat at Cooking' by Delia Smith.
Examples of popular childen's titles include:
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'Harry Potter' series by J.K. Rowling
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'His Dark Materials' ('Northern Lights', 'The Subtle Knife', 'The Amber Spyglass') by Philip Pullman
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'Kensuke's Kingdom' by Michael Morpurgo
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'Stormbreaker' by Anthony Horowitz
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'Cirque Du Freak' by Darren Shan
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'The Wind Singer' ;by William Nicholson
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'Bad Girls' by Jacqueline Wilson
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'Horrid Henry' by Francesca Simon and Tony Ross
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'Twilight' by Stephenie Meyer
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'The Recruit' by Robert Muchamore
Famous connections
Famous people who have used the RNIB Talking Book service in the past include:
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Lady Churchill
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Rex Harrison
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Sir John Betjeman
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Harold MacMillan
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Sir John Mills
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Eric Sykes
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Sue Townsend.
Authors who have narrated their own books include:
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Joyce Grenfel
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Roald Dahl
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Joanna Lumley
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Michael Palin
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Michael Aspell
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Joss Ackland
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Richard Wilson.
Make a donation
We need your help to fund our vital services for blind and partially sighted people in the UK. Right now we can only reach one in three of the people who need our help most.
Please make a donation and help us reach them all.
A third of our vital work helping people with sight loss is only possible thanks to people continuing their support through a legacy gift. Find out how you can leave a gift to RNIB in your Will.