The Archive Project – Make Your Views Count

NCBI is in the process of creating an Archive that will specialize in material about life in the Republic of Ireland for partially sighted and blind people. NCBI’s Archive Project is being set up to give people with vision impairment a chance to record their views and experiences.

Write About Their Lives

To create the NCBI Archive we are looking for people who are blind and vision impaired to tell us about their lives and their views, so we are asking volunteers, or correspondents, from all over Ireland to record or write about their lives, observations and opinions on particular themes in response to open ended topics. All correspondents will be allocated a number to safeguard their privacy to allow them to write as candidly as they wish.

There is no limit on word length. Correspondents may type, write by hand, word process, email, record onto tape, draw, send photographs, diagrams, cuttings from the press, poems, stories, letters and so on. It doesn’t matter about “good grammar”, spelling or style. The emphasis is on self-expression, candor and a willingness to be a vivid social commentator, and tell a good story.

How Do I Get Involved?

If you would like to get involved, then let us have your views on the first topic, which is Parenting. This could be from the way your parents responded to you as a vision impaired child, from your experiences as a vision impaired mother or father, or your experiences of parenting a child or children who are vision impaired. Write, record or email the Archive Administrator with your views and experiences along with how she can get in touch with you.

Her contact details are:
Niamh MacAlister, Archive Administrator, NCBI Library, Unit 29 Finglas Business Centre, Jamestown Road, Finglas, Dublin 11. Tel: 01- 8642266.
Email: niamh.macalister@ncbi.ie.