Latest News
- Braille and Me: from “The Documentary” on the BBC World Service
Personal stories from Braille users around the world and how this very simple invention of six little dots continues to transform lives.
Built around a game of Braille Scrabble, Emma Tracey presents a celebration of Braille, 200 years after it was invented. Emma, who’s been blind since birth, talks to others who love the six tiny dots: Geerat Vermeij, one of the world’s leading experts in molluscs; Yetnebersh Nigussie, an Ethiopian lawyer, who describes her blindness as ‘a lottery I won at the age of 5’; Sheri Wells-Jensen, a linguistics professor who’s been a linguistic consultant on Star Trek and is on the US advisory board for messaging extra-terrestrial intelligence; Japanese concert pianist, Nobuyuki Tsujii, who learnt to play using Braille music; and Emma’s friend and Scrabble partner, Ellie. And there’s a chance encounter with the most famous Braille user of them all, Stevie Wonder. But can Braille survive with the ever-increasing supply of tech that allows blind people to listen to, rather than feel, information?
- Updates to RNIB Personal Transcription Service, March 2025
Dear Customer,
We’re writing to provide an update regarding changes to the RNIB Personal Transcription Service, following the conclusion of our recent organisational-wide consultation.
As part of this consultation, we’ve carefully reviewed all service areas to identify where we need to do more, where we need to scale back and where we need to do things differently to help us focus on our aim of reaching many more people with sight loss through their eye care support journey.
Our aim continues to be ensuring RNIB is there for as many of the 2 million blind and partially sighted people in the UK as possible – a number that is expected to double by 2050 – whilst maintaining financial sustainability to remain available for as long as we’re needed. Additionally, there’s vital work ahead to create the societal changes necessary for lasting, positive improvements for blind and partially sighted people. These changes will enhance the delivery of support, ensuring continuity of care throughout individuals’ lives and addressing existing limitations in our reach.
Following a detailed consultation process and in response to suggestions from our teams, we’ve decided to continue offering Large Print on Demand, which represents over 50 per cent of our Personal Transcription work and is an expanding area of the service. This will now be managed differently, ensuring it remains sustainable and capable of meeting the growing demand.
The remaining aspects of the Personal Transcription Service will transition to a new provider, whose core business model specialises in transcription services. This change will involve a charged-for model, with RNIB subsidising part of the cost for a limited time to ease the transition for our customers. We appreciate how unsettling changes like these can be, and we are committed to ensuring a smooth transition and a positive customer experience.
The new provider is A2i Transcription Services, and has been chosen after careful consideration, due to their excellent reputation. You can contact A2i in the following ways:
Telephone: 01179 440044
Email: [email protected] Website: a2i.co.uk
Address: A2i Transcription Services, Unit 4 Montpelier Central, Station Road, Bristol BS6 5EE
You will need to identify yourself as a RNIB Personal Transcription Service user by quoting the code RNIBPT04/25.We remain incredibly grateful to you, volunteers and RNIB staff for your unwavering support of the Personal Transcription Service over the years. Your commitment has been invaluable. As we move forward, RNIB is firmly focused on creating a greater, long-lasting impact for blind and partially sighted people across the UK. Our dedication to driving meaningful change and ensuring support for future generations remains at the heart of everything we do.
If you have any questions or concerns, please don’t hesitate to contact us. Thank you for your understanding.
Helen Atwere
Director of Operations
RNIB- Personal Transcription Customer Comms, 10 April 2025
After listening to feedback, we’ve reviewed our proposed changes to our personal transcription services and looked at ways that we can urge others to be accountable for providing accessible formats. However, we can’t expect society to change overnight.
For this reason, personal transcription will remain free of charge for eligible customers for the next year, with RNIB covering the costs incurred where the service is provided via an external provider, A2i, an organisation steeped in accessibility for more than 20 years.
We realise that RNIB no longer providing this service itself may be disappointing for some of our customers. But our long-term aim is to focus RNIB’s transcription services on addressing remaining gaps where work is not transcribed at its source.
This interim arrangement allows us the time needed to bring together interested parties to commit to developing a sustainable long-term solution.
By working together, we can ensure that the transcription needs are met appropriately by the relevant organisations and people have access to the information they need, when and how they want it. This collaborative approach recognises we can’t achieve this alone and reflects our dedication to creating solutions that meet evolving needs.
We will also continue to deliver Large Print on Demand, which accounts for over 50 percent of personal transcription work, to existing customers.
You’ll continue to place your orders through us via the RNIB Helpline and we’ll work with A2i to fulfil your order as quickly and efficiently as possible. We’re working through this process and will give you further updates on when we’re ready to take orders through the RNIB Helpline.
RNIB remains deeply committed to providing braille services. From RNIB Bookshare supporting accessible educational materials and textbooks, to our library collection with access to more than 11,000 braille books, RNIB Newsagent offering braille versions of popular magazines and newspapers and our music library holding one of the largest collections of accessible format music for blind and partially sighted musicians.
RNIB’s campaigning and advocacy teams will also continue to work tirelessly with different sectors – from health to education – to build understanding that they have a legal responsibility to provide their blind and partially sighted customers with written material in their preferred accessible format. We’ll continue to support people with sight loss to assert their legal rights to receive information in accessible formats.
More information on this will follow on how RNIB can support you to direct your personal transcription work back to the organisation who provided it and we will work with you closely on this.
The Braillists is a grass-roots community group offering high quality training and support to emerging and established braille users. We also work with family members, friends, colleagues and teachers of braille users, and connect braille users with braille technology developers and funders.
What Is Braille?
Braille is a simple code for representing written language. We believe braille has the potential to transform the life of any blind person who has the opportunity to learn it.
Discover more about braille on this page.
Learn Braille
We support hundreds of adults to read braille by touch in a few short weeks through our innovative and approachable Braille for Beginners course. Free of charge, it comprises hard copy resources through the post and a series of short pre-recorded lessons, supplemented by email and Zoom support from highly qualified and experienced tutors.
Find out more about Braille for Beginners and register here.
There are plenty of other courses available too, for both children and adults, reading by touch or by sight. We have made a list of these on our Learn Braille page.
Perkins Repairs and Other Braille Equipment
The Perkins Brailler is the most established braille writer in use today, and even machines from the 1950s can still be serviced and repaired. We have compiled information about Perkins repairs, places to purchase Perkins Braillers, and other types of braille equipment on our Braille Equipment page.
If you are looking for braille paper, you can find it on our Braille Consumables page.
Our Aims
- Promote the value of braille as a proven literacy tool that enriches the lives of blind people.
- Support efforts to make affordable braille and tactile reading technologies available to all blind people irrespective of education and employment status.
- Provide an open forum for the exchange of ideas about the development of future braille technology.
Find Out More
Join our announcements only mailing list to receive our weekly newsletter.
Join the conversation and meet other Braillists on our discussion forum.
Connect with us on Twitter (@Braillists) or like us on Facebook for up to the minute Braillists news.
Listen to some braille-related audio on Soundcloud (braillists).
Please see our Sponsors and Partners for information on organisations who are supporting us.
Get In Touch
Email [email protected] or call 020 3893 3392. Further details on our Contact Us page.