The National Library for the Blind (NLB) was a public library in the United Kingdom, founded 1882, which aimed to ensure that people with sight problems have the same access to library services as sighted people. NLB was taken over by the Royal National Institute of Blind People on 1 January 2007 and incorporated into the RNIB National Library Service.
History
Origins
The Lending Library for the Blind began its service to readers on Monday, 9 October 1882. The library was a private charitable venture by Martha Arnold who was blind since childhood. It was accommodated in a small room of her house at 73 Fairfax Road, South Hampstead, London. Carlota Dow was Arnold's first assistant; the two ladies ran the library on a voluntary basis with the assistance of a few friends.
Arnold intended that the Library should "bring solace and light" and that it should help to "raise the literary standard of the blind". There were no more than fifty volumes on the shelves when the Library opened its doors to its first ten registered readers.
The library initially opened on Monday afternoons to the blind readers who were in a position to call in person. Parcels of books were sent off to 'country members' on the first and third Mondays of each month. Volumes were issued for four weeks each.
The annual subscription for borrowers was 4s. 4d., which was one penny a week, but those 'in better circumstances' were expected to pay half a guinea. During the library's first five years, the number of readers increased to about one hundred and the stock to 750 volumes (600 in braille, 130 in Moon type, and 20 in Lucas systems of printing for the blind). Due to needing more space for book-stock, Arnold moved to 28 Boundary Road, in 1886, then to 114 Belsize Road, London, in 1887.
The stocks of books in Moon type and Lucas systems had mostly been presented to the library and some of the braille books had been purchased on special terms from the Royal National Institute of Blind People, which was known as the British and Foreign Blind Society at the time. Much of the braille had been hand-transcribed by voluntary workers. Arnold transcribed some of the titles and trained some of her friends to write braille.
The library and the number of its readers grew steadily during the last decade of the nineteenth century. By 1899, it was serving 300 readers with a stock of 3,200 volumes. Approximately 1,500 'boxes, parcels and hampers' were being sent out each year.
Incorporation
Towards the end of Arnold's life, the library began to experience serious growing pains. After many delays, the library was registered as the Incorporated National Lending Library for the Blind on 15 September 1898. Dow was particularly active during this uncomfortable transition period.
The annual membership fee charged to blind readers was raised in stages to two guineas. The poorest readers were allowed to pay less – in the hardest cases very substantially less – but only after the committee had considered individual applications for remission.
The first paid staff were recruited: Miss McLaren as Secretary and Miss Lohr as Librarian. These appointments considerably eased the difficulties of day-to-day routine, but the accommodation problem became steadily acute. By 1904, the stock had grown to nearly 8,000 volumes, with yearly addition of more than 500.
The library moved to new premises – an adapted shop and basement at 125 Queen's Road, Bayswater – in September 1904. McLaren and Lohr both retired in the following year. The new officers appointed to replace them proved unsatisfactory, and in 1906, "Ethel" Winifred Austin took up the new combined post of Secretary and Librarian. Austin proved to lead arguably the most eventful of the library's history. Despite postage rates for embossed volumes for the blind being reduced by the Postmaster General in 1906,