Volunteers lend a voice in 24-hour narrate-a-thon for persons with disabilities

Event:  Eighty volunteers will narrate in shifts for a 24-hour period to create audio-recorded materials for persons with print disabilities

Date/Time:  Friday, April 20, 10 a.m. – 1 p.m.

Location:  Brock Hall – West
Crane Production Space, Room 0105
1874 East Mall
For a map, visit: http://www.maps.ubc.ca/?112
Entrance to the Crane Production Space can be difficult to find, please call 604.822.6114 for specific instructions.


As part of National Volunteer Week, UBC Access & Diversity’s Crane Library is hosting its first ever narrate-a-thon. Starting at 8:30 a.m. on Friday, and ending at 8:30 a.m. on Saturday, 80 volunteers will take turns narrating talking books for K-12 students in the Bella Coola School District.

Established in 1968, Crane Library houses an extensive collection of alternate format materials, including Braille, electronic text, PDF and audio for students, faculty and staff at UBC. It is one of the largest producers of human voice audio in Canada and shares its resources with students around the country. Today, Crane has more than 160 volunteers who narrate more than 250 new titles every year.

Half of Crane Library’s volunteers have signed up to participate in the narrate-a-thon, including one volunteer who will record for 10 hours, from 1:30 – 11:30 p.m. The talking books being produced for the Bella Coola students are part of a special project to record 100 books about First Nations history and culture for the school district. Students with perceptual difficulties, either visually or with comprehension, will listen to the books and then practice reading out loud. The project kicks off at the narrate-a-thon.

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Contact

Laurie Dawson
Access and Diversity
Tel: 604.822.6114
Email: crane.volunteer@ubc.ca

Heather Amos
UBC Public Affairs
Tel: 604.822.3213
Cell: 604.828.3864
Email: heather.amos@ubc.ca