Temple Sisterhood Braille Group

For 66 years the Temple Sisterhood Braille Group has been dedicated to the production of correctly transcribed and formatted braille books to benefit the education of visually impaired children and adults in northeast Florida.

The group, located in Jacksonville, Florida, has specialists in transcription and formatting all types of books from library literature and specialty books to hymnals and textbooks in science, mathematics, reading and grammar.

Our volunteers work not only with schools in Duval County, but also with schools in Nassau, Clay, and St. Johns County and its Florida School for the Deaf and Blind. Volunteers have and continue to transcribe many series of textbooks in reading, language arts and mathematics for a home-schooled boy in Pennsylvania from his first school years to his present eighth grade textbooks.

The IRIS Free Library for the Blind recently reported to us that volunteers have transcribed over 1,000 books for its library.

Our Tactile graphics department, although small, it is mighty with talented tactile graphics artists who continue to produce outstanding and often intricate tactile pictures for the braille books our group produces. Their talent and creativeness bring many of the books alive for their young readers. Here are some examples:

Our group is proud to announce nine graduates from its latest UEB transcription class of 2023. We have four newly NFB certified braillists and others working to become certified.

This year, with so many skilled braillists in our fold, we have decided to recruit and concentrate on teaching interested volunteers how to create tactile graphics for the many books we produce. These classes will begin in the fall of 2023.