Talking Times, Fall 2024 - Section 2

Amazon’s Alexa and BARD

The National Library Service for the Blind and Print Disabled (NLS) plans to make audiobooks and magazines available through Amazon Alexa smart speakers in mid to late summer 2025. NLS is in the final stages of beta-testing this ability with patrons nationwide. Patrons will use their voice to find and play books and magazines on various Amazon’s smart speakers. Like other smart speaker products, the books and magazines will be stored within your BARD (Braille and Audio Reading Download) account service offered by the National Library Services. If you have more than one Amazon smart speaker, you can move from one speaker to another and continue listening.

Introducing the New BARD Express Player

NLS is pleased to announce the release of BARD Express, version 3.0.0.7. This release includes the long-awaited BARD Express Player, which allows patrons to choose an audio book or magazine from their BARD Express bookshelf and listen to it directly on their PC. Like BARD Mobile, the BARD Express Player allows users to adjust the narration speed, jump to navigation points such as parts, chapters, and articles, create bookmarks, and much more. Users can also create global settings for narration speed, auto-play, auto-rewind, and more. Patrons using JAWS and NVDA can either use the tab key to move to each of the player’s functions or tap a single letter assigned to that function. For example, they can type F for fast forward, R for rewind, and B for bookmarks. A complete list of commands can be found under the BARD Express Help menu. Scripts are built into the 2024 version of JAWS to optimize the BARD Express Player. Patrons using JAWS 2022 or 2023 can download the same scripts from the BARD Express page on the NLS website and import them into their screen readers. We recommend reading Section 7 of the BARD Express user guide on the NLS website. 

Many Faces of BARD Program

If you are having issues with BARD, please take advantage of the virtual Many Faces of BARD program to ask NLS BARD technical support staff for help. This program is held every other month for members and is very helpful in understanding the BARD Program.

That All May eRead Program 

The NLS Patron Engagement Section has launched a new monthly program called “That All May eRead” on Zoom. This program will occur on the last Tuesday night of each month at 7 pm and will focus on using the NLS Braille eReaders. Each session will begin with a brief demonstration of a feature or use case. The rest of the hour will be spent answering patron questions about any aspect of the Zoomax or HumanWare Braille eReaders. You may access the program via Zoom.