The New Jersey Unit of Recording for the Blind & Dyslexic (RFB&D) is a volunteer-based, non-profit organization that provides access to educational, professional and technical material at virtually no charge to visually, physically and learning disabled individuals.
Volunteers in our New Jersey studios produce educational materials in accessible formats. These texts, at every academic level, are recorded for students who cannot read standard print.
This material enables students to achieve educational and professional success promoting independence, increasing productivity and enhancing their self-esteem and quality of life.
NJN video of RFB&D-NJ Unit
Directory of RFB&D NJ Unit Staff and Board of Directors
Profiles of Our Staff
Profiles of Board of Directors
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"RFB&D's audio tapes* help bring the magic of the printed page to those who have lost their sight or who struggle with dyslexia."
Christine Todd Whitman,
former Governor, State of New Jersey, and past Administrator, U.S. Department of Environmental Protection
*note: Tapes are no longer availble; as of July 1, 2007, RFB&D recordings are all digital on CDs.
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History of the New Jersey Unit
In 1957 a small group of Princetonians, who were reading aloud to a blind student, organized the Princeton Unit of Recording for the Blind to expand their efforts. With a four-booth studio in space generously provided by the Princeton Theological Seminary and an annual budget of $4000, they began providing free books on tape for students. Since then the unit has recorded over 6,000 complete titles on every topic imaginable, and copies of these books have been circulated over 125,000 times.
- By 1995 more than fifty percent of borrowers were learning-disabled, so the organization changed its name to Recording for the Blind and Dyslexic.
- In Fiscal Year 2003, volunteers contributed more than 28,000 hours to one of the most productive units in the country.
- RFB&D served over 4,000 New Jersey students last year with nearly 11,000 taped texbooks.
- In the past 10 years, the unit has expanded
- from six recording booths to twelve;
- from one full-time and four part-time staff people to 9 full-time and 5 part-time;
- from a budget of $64,000 to $840,000;
- from 250 volunteers to more than 400;
- and from 4,800 hours of recorded material per year to nearly 9,000. One person listening 40 hours a week, fifty weeks a year, would need just over four years to hear them all!
The real story of RFB&D, however, is not quantitative, but qualitative. Our unit has hundreds of skilled and dedicated volunteers with the expertise to record specialized books in many disciplines, including both physical and social sciences, law, mathematics, medicine, and languages. We record texbooks for students in grades kindergarten through graduate school and beyond, who cannot read standard print because of a visual, perceptual, or physical disablity.