The Indiana Talking Book and Braille Library is a busy place to work. Each week we get hundreds of phone calls from patrons eagerly awaiting their next book while thousands of items move through the basement of the library on their way to or coming back from patrons. However, talking books is also an extremely rewarding place to work. Among those hundreds of patron phone calls each week come many thanks for the service we provide; hidden in the occasional returned book is a note telling us just how much people love their talking books. Here is a collection of notes from patrons and their families telling us how much they appreciate what we do.

“Thank you! You have no way of knowing and measuring what your dedicated work means to our mother. It is like travel and learning and exploring every day. At 96 years of age, Mother enjoys the stimulation and information you provide to her limited assisted living world.”

“Talking books gave my mother hours of pleasure. It is a wonderful service and I boast about it to anyone that will listen.”

“Talking books was the ‘best gift I ever gave my mother!’”

“We truly appreciate all the effort your organization makes to provide us with the benefits that make our life so much easier. I would be lost without the books and the machine to read them with.”

“Thank you for adding so much joy, sadness, and learning to my dark life. These books bring such hunger for more knowledge. It brings light to me and delight in new adventures with the arrival of every book. Thank you so much!”

“My father suffered from Macular Degeneration and used your service for the last 7 years. If not for the books on tape he listened to daily, his world would have been very small. Thank you for bringing him the joy of ‘reading’.”

“We call you ‘friends’ because you never let us down in all the time she had this special program. Next to getting visits from her baby boy, these books were her greatest joy.”

“You people do a wonderful thing. It means the world to me. My world has shrunk so much since I can no longer read easily or drive at all. Thank you so much. What a wonderful program.”

“I thank all of you that provide the Talking Books for us. Life for me would be ‘no life’ without them.”

“The ‘Talking Books’ program provided a wonderful outlet for my mother to enjoy books even though her macular degeneration had robbed her of the ability to read them herself. Every afternoon and at bedtime she listened to her tapes, which helped so much in passing the time.”

“Letting go of my husband’s book machine was hard for me. I can’t tell you how much it meant to him to be able to get away from the chronic pain and bad vision and get lost in a good book. In the last two years of his life his books were his main enjoyment. How can I ever thank you enough?”

“My 93 year old father…especially enjoyed the book Unbroken, listening to it twice and causing others in the family to read it. My father especially related  to that book because he was in Okinawa the same time…I especially appreciated the book because it helped me see what it was really like to live through a war.”

This blog post was written by Margaret Ansty, Talking Book & Braille Library Supervisor, Indiana State Library. For more information, contact the Indiana State Library at (317)232-3684 or “Ask-A-Librarian” at http://www.in.gov/library/ask.htm.