视频播放位置 下载安装Flash播放器

Fighting Beijing's lingering winter chill, a group of volunteer readers at a West Gulou Street audio library continued to work. The library assists visually impaired to "read" books.

A visually impaired visitor to Hongdandan Xinmu Library is listening to a book with the help from the library assistant.

Hongdandan Xinmu Library is dedicated to empowering blind people with the ability to read.

Ms. Liu Mengchun is one such full-time volunteer reader. She does not see well herself, but still manages to read for the blind. She wishes to help those with even worse eyesight and give them knowledge through her voice. Recently she is working on the translated Italian fairy tale "Favole al telefono" (Telephone Fairytales).

Beneath Liu's studio is the reading room on the first floor of library's two-story building. Mr. Xiao Huanyi, a frequent visitor to the library, was attentively listening to a reader's voice from a speaker, which resembles a telephone receiver. Today he was listening to "Beijing, not Northward." "It's a book on commercial wars, and has a very peculiar name," he said.

The library's volunteer readers are not professional anchors, and misreading is a common occurrence. To solve the problem, there are also editors to mark the corrections before segmented audio files are compiled into a final product.

Hongdandan Xinmu Library started recruiting volunteers soon after it was established one year ago. The library has received thousands of applicants to help record books for the listening impaired, and roughly 100 volunteers were selected from this group.

These volunteers have helped the library complete more than 130 audio books, including classics like "Moments in Peking," "Flowers of War" and bestsellers such as "Under the Hawthorn Tree."

It usually takes two to three months to finish reading aloud one book, and post-production including proofreading and editing takes an additional two to three months.

Volunteers are required to read aloud all information -- cover, illustration, index, name of the publishing house and page.

"Whatever information a normal person can see, we need to read it aloud," said Ms. Zheng Xiaojie, founder of Hongdandan Educational and Cultural Exchange Center, the library's parent agency.

She said the library did not have the right to "decide what blind people need," but provide all it had for them to choose from.

"Empowering them with the right to choose is giving them the true dignity. In so doing, they have equal rights and can share in cultural products," Zheng said, alluding to her initiative in creating the Xinmu Library

Mr. Xiao said he used to listen to radio programs on stories before Xinmu Library opened. "It was too passive to listen to the radio," he said.

"Story programs like taking breaks at cliff hanging points; I'm too impatient for that. Also, programs from China National Radio and such are often too political -- no good for relaxation," he added.

Xiao graduated from a local school for the visually impaired some 20 years ago. "I did read many books written in Braille at that time."

Xiao's disability has limited his profession to a masseur, but he loves books. He takes pride in having a cognition level similar to that of a regular person.

Just like Xiao, all frequent visitors can easily recognise many of the readers' voices.

"Ms. Shi Mulan has read 'Decoding Shangganling' and 'Sorrow of the Yellow River.' She has a southern accent. But I can accept that. Unlike young readers, her voice is full of emotion and holds a touch of history. It's like an old man telling stories," Xiao said, commenting on one of his favourite readers.

Shi, who is almost 80 years old, is indeed the oldest volunteer reader. She honors her duty to the library and has never missed her 9 a.m. Tuesday and Thursday morning shift since she joined Xinmu Library in 2011.

During the past year or so, Shi has finished several long novels. At each recording session she is able to finish around 30 pages. At this rate, it takes two to three months to finish a 500-600 page book, she said.

49-year-old woman Zhou Ling, who lost her sight 26 years ago, is another frequent visitor at the library. Zhou said she could do whatever a normal person could do, such as "going to buy groceries and cooking," but could not read a book.

She said she spent a great deal of time listening to novels through reading software on a computer. "But those were read by a computerized voice that read too fast and had no emotion," she said. Xinmu Library's human voices made her feel "so much better."