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In the 1980s there was a grassroots effort, spearheaded by blind adults and the parents of blind children, to counter a curricular trend they recognized was, in effect, condemning an entire generation of blind Americans to functional illiteracy. In roughly two-thirds of the 50 states, their efforts have since yielded bills that — while they obviously vary — essentially make Braille instruction compulsory, unless an educator proves that a blind child is cognitively unable to read. (Of course, this does mean that most blind children must depend on itinerant Braille instructors who sometimes travel up to 2000 miles a week to reach different school systems. And that, consequently, some kids receive only an hour or two of reading instruction per week. But that’s better than nothing.)

So why is Braille important in this marvelous technological age? "Take out the word ‘Braille,’ and put in the words ‘reading and writing,’ " says Bill Raeder. "We don’t ask you how important the Roman alphabet is. How important is reading and writing? You’ve got reading and writing materials on the desk, right in front of you. And you do it all day, every day. Braille is simply the alphabet for blind people. It represents the same words and the same letters. Why is reading and writing important? Same reason."

Years ago, as his child was starting kindergarten, Raeder had an epiphany. "Suppose that this had happened: all these parents come in with their children, all excited for the first day of school, and the principal says, ‘We’ve got an amazing new program this year! We’ve got tape recorders and talking computers, so guess what! We don’t need to trouble your kids with the need to learn to read!’ How would those parents react?"

In recent decades, Braille has been resurgent — due in no small part to NBP’s efforts. "We’re making great progress," says Raeder, who’s been at NBP since 1976. "A dozen years or so ago, there was no presumption that blind children learning in public school knew how to read. Now, for the most part, there is. Not everywhere, but more so than a decade earlier." And, when it comes to the fiscal health of his nonprofit, Raeder says, "There’s been a major shift in the last 15 years. We are a very small operation, but we have over 50 employees now. When I first came here, we were 12. Our budget, when I first came here, was $184,000. Now, it’s $4 million."

All that, even as NBP has sold close to 10,000 copies of Harry Potter and the Goblet of Fire — each for $70 less than what it cost to produce. "It’s reverse lucrative!" Holton laughs. Even though Braille is incredibly expensive to produce, NBP is committed to keeping price points for its books comparable to what the printed versions sell for; it takes a loss on every title. (The nonprofit is funded through contract work and private and corporate donations.) Still, it’s all worthwhile, both for the benefits NBP provides for its readers and the self-sufficiency it offers its employees. More than 70 percent of working-age blind people in this country are jobless; Raeder says that "it’s always been our policy to provide employment opportunities for blind people. And it’s always been my experience, at least as long as I’ve been here, that it would be on a competitive basis with sighted people. It’s not subsidized employment or anything like that. The blind person is expected to carry out the functions of a job, just as a sighted person would. Now, there are accommodations that are needed. Blind people often need accommodations. But so do sighted people. You need the light on! We certainly apply affirmative action here, and it’s important to do that."

Back in high school, Melissa Hirshson, National Braille Press’s transcription supervisor, was required to do community service during her senior year, and chose the Perkins School, in Watertown, for her assignment. "I worked with little kids, and I think about half of them at the time were cognitively able to read Braille," says Hirshson, who is sighted. "I just thought Braille was really interesting, that you write without having to see. So I just taught it to myself." She’s been at NBP for 13 years.

Translating a written work into Braille begins with an electronic file, either sent directly to NBP or translated from the printed page using an electronic scanner. Demonstrating with a novel-in-verse called Shakespeare Bats Cleanup, Hirshson, using the locally developed Duxbury Braille Translator software, toggles between screens, and shows the transformation as a page of alphabetic text morphs into a white expanse marked by sparse regiments of small dots.

Once the translation is completed — it’ll take Hirshson about two days to transcribe the book she’s working on; a much longer text, like The 9/11 Commission Report, took about two weeks — the file is sent to an embosser who transfers those dots onto metal plates, imprints them on paper, and sends them on for proofreading. Hirshson then gets a stack of Braille pages back, along with a list of corrections, also written in Braille. (Like most sighted Braille readers, Hirshson reads the dots with her eyes, not her fingers.)

The proofreading is done in a dark and musty room that looks like an old-fashioned tradesman’s workshop. Amid stacks of bound and unbound Braille — including a single dictionary that requires more than 70 volumes of heavyweight paper — four men sit hunched over desks, headphones on, fingers briskly scanning pages.

"We usually do two readings on most jobs," says proofing supervisor Christopher Devin. "The first reading, we have people record the material on tape with all the punctuation, the spelling of unusual words and names, the paragraphing, and so forth. We listen to the tape, and we’re reading along in Braille, and we’re making sure not only that the Braille and the print are accurate copies of each other, but that the contractions are proper, the rules are followed, the Braille is set up properly on the page, and so forth."