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Friday, June 4, 2010

Downloading Digital NLS Books

The National Library Service for the Blind and Physically Handicapped (NLS) is a service for individuals with disabilities preventing them from reading standard printed material. They are currently moving to a digital format and have audio books available for download.

Patrons who are registered for the service can download books onto a flashdrive and play them on their NLS digital talking book player.

For information on the NLS service please visit: http://www.loc.gov/nls/

For readers who are registered with NLS here are the instructions for downloading digital talking books:

1. Connect the thumb drive or blank NLS cartridge to the computer.

2. Go to Google and search for: nlsbard

3. Click on the first result which says Please log in and has the address https://nlsbard.loc.gov

4. Enter your email and password.

5. You can search for books by title, author, subject, or keyword. You can find magazines by title or issue date. Use the “H” key (JAWS or Window Eyes) to skip by heading.

6. When you find a book you want to download, press ENTER on the link.

7. You will get the option to OPEN or SAVE the book. Choose SAVE.

8. Download the book (a zip file – meaning one folder with lots of files in it) to the flashdrive or NLS cartridge.

9. Once the download is complete, extract all files from the zip file to the same location (the flashdrive or cartridge) – by selecting the zip file and right clicking (or hitting the applications key, next to the right control key) and choosing “extract all” and navigating through the wizard.

10. When the extraction process is finished, safely remove the flashdrive or cartridge by going to the system tray and choosing “safely remove hardware”

11. Put the flashdrive or cartridge in the DTB player and enjoy!

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