The University of Colorado at Boulder's Volunteer Reader Program, which records textbooks onto tape for blind, dyslexic and other visually or cognitively impaired students, is looking for volunteers.
"We receive about half of our texts from organizations like Reading for the Blind and sometimes it's possible to get an electronic version of a text, but that still leaves many, many books that are not available or not of use to those students with other reading challenges," said Howard Kramer, Assistive Technology Lab coordinator for Disability Services.
Volunteers consist of students, staff, faculty and community members who spend approximately two hours per week either recording the text of a book onto tape or reading directly to students.
Volunteers attend an initial training session on how to use the four-track recorders and how to record a high-quality reading. A list of volunteers is given to students who use the service and if a face-to-face session is needed, they have a choice of people with whom they can work out a schedule.
"I do use the face-to-face sessions for certain things and the books on tape are also great - I can use those on my own time, study at 3 a.m. like every other college student," said Seth Geer, a first-year graduate student in the School of Journalism and Mass Communication who has dyslexia.
For more information on the Volunteer Reader Program visit the Web site at or call Disability Services at (303) 492-5601.