For the Love of Reading
Talking books . . . and magazines. Story and photographs by Bobbi and Steve Olson |
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BONNIE FAIMON RECALLED her first real
encounter with a blind person . . . at a Sunday service at St. John’s
Catholic Church on Creighton University campus in Omaha.
She watched a Jesuit priest, Father
Larry Gillick, walk down the aisle, and she recognized there was something different
about him. He opened a huge Bible and his fingers began flying over the paper
as he read aloud to the congregation. Though he was blind, his words opened
a new appreciation in Faimon for reading . . . and for the Bible.
Seven years ago, at the suggestion
of Dave Oertli, director of the Nebraska Library Commission’s Talking
Book and Braille Service in Lincoln, Faimon auditioned as a volunteer narrator
for the program. The former teacher, social worker and legal secretary confessed
her inspiration. “Reading is the thing I would miss most if I were to
suddenly lose my sight,” she said.
Faimon is one of 52 volunteers who
work with two full-time staff to record 25-35 books and around 140 issues of
magazines and newsletters each year, with an emphasis on Nebraska authors or
materials about Nebraska or the Great Plains, including Nebraska Life Magazine.
For two hours a week, Faimon sits
in a closet-sized recording studio and reads aloud from the books and magazines
propped on the music stand before her. A microphone hangs a few inches away,
and a producer monitors a computer screen on the other side of a glass window.
Faimon’s concentration is on the spoken word: “I want to make sure
that I make it interesting for them to hear,” she said.
With minor editing, Faimon’s
narration is then recorded to a cassette tape, duplicated and made available
to the 4,300 Nebraskans who subscribe to the free service.
Faimon is helping others, but she’s
also pursuing a life-long love. “People have been telling me I read too
much since I was five years old,” Faimon said. “I love to read.
I love the written word.”
For more information about free talking
books and magazines for Nebraska residents who are unable to see regular print,
hold a book or turn its pages, contact the Nebraska Library Commission at 1-800-742-7691
or talkingbook@nlc.state.ne.us.