Kentucky Council of the Blind

Serving blind and low vision Kentuckians

KCB Online News

The Talking Newspaper is no longer available. Click here to learn about current services, events and programs for the blind and visually impaired.

SCKCB President, Nancy Imran, Graduates from Western

December 13 - Nancy Imran, president of the South Central Kentucky Council of the Blind, graduated from Western Kentucky University with a degree in social work.

Nancy has been president of KCB's Bowling Green chapter since September, 2007. She completed an internship in social work in Louisville this past semester, and she has already been offered and has accepted a permanent position. Nancy plans to attend the Kent School of Social Work at the University of Louisville to obtain her Master's degree. Congratulations, Nancy!

Dollar General to Install Tactile Point-of-sale Machines

Dollar General, one of the nation's largest discount retailers with more than 8,000 stores in 35 states, has begun installing tactile point of sale devices in all its stores. This new equipment will protect the privacy of Dollar General shoppers with visual impairments. The new devices have tactile keys arranged like a standard telephone keypad. They will allow Dollar General shoppers who have difficulty reading information on a touchscreen to privately and independently enter their PIN and other confidential information.

The announcement is the result of an agreement the company negotiated with the American Council of the Blind, the American Foundation for the Blind, and a blind Dollar General customer. The settlement was reached without litigation using Structured Negotiations and was negotiated by Linda Dardarian and Lainey Feingold.

Dollar General is the seventh national company to engage in Structured Negotiations with ACB and AFB about the issue of tactile point of sale devices. The Sqructured Negotiation process has also been used to spread talking ATM's throughout the country and to make accessible credit reports available to the blind and visually impaired.

A list of all 32 agreements signed using Structured negotiations is available at www.lflegal.com

TCF Bank Adds Talking ATM's

December 3, 2008 - TCF Bank (TCF), a subsidiary of TCF Financial Corporation (NYSE: TCB), the Illinois Council of the Blind, an affiliate of the American Council of the Blind, and Equip for Equality announced today that TCF has launched a major initiative intended to provide easier access to its banking services for individuals with visual impairments.

TCF has agreed to install 350 Talking ATMs across its network in Minnesota, Illinois, Michigan, Colorado, Wisconsin, Indiana and Arizona in the next 13 months. Hundreds of TCF banking locations will have the devices by the end of next year. Talking ATMs, which deliver audio information privately through any standard personal headset, make it possible for persons who are blind or who otherwise have difficulty reading an ATM screen to use the ATM independently.

ACB president Mitch Pomerantz commented: "This settlement with TCF Bank represents yet one more milestone for blind and visually impaired people on the road to full equality in the handling of everyday commercial transactions. It also spotlights the benefits of structured negotiations over costly and time-consuming litigation."

In addition to Talking ATMs, TCF will enhance its current programs for communicating with customers with visual impairments. The bank will provide monthly bank statements for consumer accounts in braille and large print, and will adopt a policy for ensuring effective communication of other banking documents.

Illinois Council of the Blind president Camille Caffarelli stated, “I was pleased to represent the Illinois Council of the Blind in assisting in the implementation of accessible ATM's with TCF Banks. Those of us who are blind or visually impaired should be able to equally access these machines that have become a part of the daily fabric of our lives. It's simply a part of equal citizenship. I'm glad that TCF along with Equip for Equality, Amy Peterson and the Law Office of Lainey Feingold assisted us in making a difference for people who are blind or visually impaired across the country. We need to continue working together to make equal accessibility the norm and not the exception.”

The TCF settlement agreement is the 20th agreement about Talking ATMs that has been reached without litigation using the structured negotiations process. While TCF Bank is the smallest bank to engage in structured negotiations, Bank of America continues to be the largest, with over 12,000 installed Talking ATMs.

AFB to Stop Producing Talking Books

The American Foundation for the Blind (AFB) will stop recording Talking Books in October, 2009, when the lease on its current headquarters expires. According to the AFB website, readers will continue to have access to high quality recordings from the many other accomplished audio book producers participating in the NLS program. Commercially-produced audio books are also increasingly popular and affordable, and more and more people are downloading audio books from the Internet. AFB has been recording books for 75 years, but it does not feel that it can continue to commit the funds from private donors necessary to maintain its partcipation in the program.