Projects & Experiments April-June 1997, Vol. 28, No. 2 Replaces News April-June 1997 (ISSN 1046-1663) National Library Service for the Blind and Physically Handicapped The Library of Congress _Talking-book narration: A commitment to excellence_ For most people, reading is a very personal experience: one person enjoying a book. In the case of recorded books, another person is introduced into this relationship--the narrator, who faithfully and skillfully conveys the words and the substance of the print book. For a person unable to read a print book or who cannot hold one or turn its pages, the narrator is a vital link to the world of literature and the contact with the creative minds who write books. Many blind and physically handicapped persons come to regard the narrators of the recorded books they read as close, personal friends much as avid moviegoers regard movie stars. But the one-on-one nature of the narrator/listener duo can even intensify these feelings. For children who have grown up with the talking-book program, a favorite voice may have been the catalyst for developing a lifelong love of reading. NLS works hard to make that reading experience a good one. Talking books became a part of the three-year-old braille library program in 1934. More than sixty years later, the commitment to excellence in narration is still foremost. The recorded collection now contains more than 46,000 books. Almost nineteen million copies of bestsellers, biographies, mysteries, romances, self-help books, historical tomes, and science fiction epics circulate annually to more than half a million readers. Even with, or despite, these large numbers, the basic element of the program is still one book, one listener, and one narrator. And careful production continues--for each and every book, one book at a time. (Projects & Experiments is published on an occasional basis to summarize and provide in-depth information on technical developments of interest to blind and physically handicapped individuals and on long-range program projects of the National Library Service for the Blind and Physically Handicapped (NLS), Library of Congress. _Projects & Experiments_ has previously been provided to _News_ subscribers in addition to the quarterly newsletter. Because of funding restrictions, the current edition replaces the spring (April-June) issue of _News._) _Standards of narration set high_ For more than six decades, NLS has been meeting the library needs of blind persons with talking books. Fiction or nonfiction, classic or bestseller, readers have been able to find a wide variety of books in audio format. This extensive range of experience, coupled with a commitment to basic narration without embellishments, has gained NLS broad recognition for the quality of its recorded books. The primary goal of the talking-book program is to provide readers with the same type of material they would find on any library shelf. Therefore, books selected are recorded in their entirety, usually including footnotes and endnotes. They are not stage productions and must be read at a speed that conveys the story without overly dramatic changes in voice or pitch. Additionally, because these books are circulated through the mail, cassette recordings must be packaged in a durable manner. They must be identifiable and accessible to patrons. _Technical specifications_ More than fifty technical specifications have been developed to help achieve these goals. Specifications describe the requirements all materials of the talking-book program must meet to be acceptable, and there is one for every aspect of every NLS product. Staff developing specifications look at each product as a whole unit, and then look separately at each area involved in making that unit. Each type of NLS product requires several design and manufacture "specs" to systematically control each area of production. For recorded books, the specs cover the artistic aspects of production and also measure the physical, chemical, electrical, and magnetic properties of the product. Coupled with the expertise of NLS staff, these requirements ensure that patrons receive long-lasting, durable products of high quality. Eight specifications deal with recorded books. Specification 300, the basic document for book mastering, outlines narration requirements such as voice clarity and modulation, timing, and pronunciation. Others prescribe the quality of the open-reel intermaster and the duplication, both important aspects of preserving and transmitting the quality of the recorded narration. Additional specifications deal with construction and labeling of the audio book and cassette containers needed for mailing and identification. _Specification 300--book mastering_ The eleven detailed pages of Specification 300 include guidelines for acceptable narration. The narrator's voice must be "clear, firm, and distinct, must not be monotonous, and must not have repetitive patterns." The narrator must be able to read for long periods of time without losing energy. The voice cannot be scratchy, have overly nasal tones, or contain raspiness. The specification says speech must be "free of excessive regional coloration or accent," free of dialect or mannerisms that detract from the text, and move at a comfortable speed for those listening over an extended period of time. In addition, narrators must be able to convey the sense of the book without dramatizing it. They must be able to "differentiate between narrative and dialogue" and among characters, using tools such as voice inflection and timing. They cannot add or delete information from the books they are reading, and they must be careful to use correct pronunciation according to the style, period, and nature of the characters. _Quality assurance_ All requirements are strictly enforced by the Quality Assurance Section (QAS). NLS specifications, says QAS head Bob Kost, were developed over many years of working with consumer groups, producers, and NLS staff. When the program started, requirements were based on the emerging technology of the day and were not stringent. But by the late 1960s and early 1970s, both the program and technology had expanded, and firmer requirements were committed to paper. In the 1980s, QAS was established to make sure these rigid requirements were met. "Our specifications outline how manufacturers must produce and test their products," Kost explains. "Basically, it is up to producers to maintain quality." In the first stage of production, books are narrated on a reel-to-reel tape. Though narration is monitored during the taping, the producer must review the complete audio tape before submitting it to QAS. "After they complete their testing, producers send us the master recording and we do a sampling," says Kost. When the tapes come to NLS, they are assigned to one of four quality assurance specialists who review them. The specialists randomly sample approximately 10 percent of each book, listening for any discrepancy in adherence to the specs. Mispronunciation, mumbling, low energy, or frequent voice modulations or pitch changes can cause an audio book to be rejected. Producers cannot ship the audio books until QAS has approved the complete package: cassette, bookcard, label, and container. At this stage, the specialists check to make sure that the cassette format and audio quality are correct, that the print/braille label on the cassette and the container label read correctly, that the proper number of cassettes for the complete book are in the container, and that the bookcard, which provides a description of the work, is enclosed and accurate. _Auditioning narrators_ Producers avoid the major pitfall of rejection--poor narration quality--by auditioning narrators and obtaining QAS approval for a prospective narrator's trial tape. Margie Goergen-Rood, director of the NLS studio, uses an approach similar to that of contract producers and volunteer studios. She asks auditioners to bring two contemporary selections to the audition, one fiction and one nonfiction. The prepared reading cannot be poetry, biblical, or classical. "The material that they choose will tell you a lot," she says. If the material selected doesn't match the narrator's voice, it is a good indication that the applicant probably doesn't know how he or she sounds or what materials suit his or her voice. Auditioners are also asked to do some "cold" readings of material provided by the studio. During the audition, the potential narrator sits in a sound booth behind a microphone and is asked to read the selections. The audition, accompanied by a short interview, usually takes about thirty minutes. Afterwards the tapes are reviewed by the studio director and several veteran narrators and then submitted to QAS for approval. "They listen and provide some feedback: `Yes, this person's got it, take him on.' or `No, absolutely not. This person is breathing into the mike, there are mouth noises,'" says Goergen-Rood. Sometimes, QAS suggests that an applicant be given a second audition with more direction. _Training_ Even those who pass the audition do not begin narrating immediately. At NLS narrators are assigned to booths for three-hour periods, which produces eighty-eight minutes of tape (or one cassette side). "Learning how to read in front of the mike, where to put the mike, and how to maintain the same level of energy throughout the period can be tedious," explains the studio director. The training process also involves observing narrators in different recording sessions, critiquing tapes already produced, and reviewing the notes of the other parts of the narrating team--monitors and reviewers. _Authors as narrators_ Authors have sometimes recorded their own books for the program, among them Eloise Greenfield with her first book of children's poetry in 1980 and Pearl Bailey, whose lyrical style was perfectly suited for the rhythm of her cookbook, published in 1973. Actress Lilli Palmer also recorded one of her books, _A Time to Embrace,_ in 1981. She requested permission to do the recording, appeared promptly after matinees of her play at the Kennedy Center, worked well with her monitor, and gave a fine reading of the material. These authors were professional readers, did the narrations because they were supportive of the program, and could deal with the demands of recording. Some authors who have volunteered to read their own books on tape have not been able to meet the stringent NLS technical standards. Generally, NLS has found that using authors as narrators does not necessarily produce a better interpretation of the book, and that NLS patrons don't need the enticement of an author narrating to select a book to read. Authors reading their own works are now rare. --Jane Caulton (photo caption: Specification 300) (photo caption: Bob Kost, head of Quality Assurance, reviews specifications. Kost retired in January after thirty-six years at NLS. Photo by Jim Higgins.) (photo caption: Tom Bickford, quality assurance audio specialist, reviews a tape submission from a contractor. Photo by Jim Higgins.) (photo caption: Margie Goergen-Rood, NLS studio director, collects tapes for review. Photo by Jim Higgins.) _Contractors provide the voices_ The voices that do so much to make recorded books come alive are almost invariably those of professional actors, although some narrators come from radio or have been voice-over announcers. Almost all books in the NLS collection are produced by contractors located in areas where theatrical activity provides a considerable resource of trained personnel. NLS secures these services by putting out an annual request for bids on the recorded books the agency expects contractors to produce during the coming year, usually around 1,580 books, depending on the length of the books and the availability of funds. Another 100 titles are read in the NLS studio, and an additional 112 are read by three volunteer agencies: Insight for the Blind, Fort Lauderdale, Florida; Brevard Association for the Advancement of the Blind, Satellite Beach, Florida; and North Texas Taping and Radio for the Blind, Dallas, Texas. _Contracting procedures_ NLS contracts provide information on the size of the average NLS recorded book as well as on the production of open-reel masters and all the components of the cassette book package, on quality assurance procedures, and on shipment and delivery schedules and requirements. The contracts include some eight individual specifications, the most relevant of which is Specification 300, Book Mastering, which details "narration criteria" (see article on p. 2). The contracts allow for separate pricing for "general" and "abstruse" material (about 4 percent of books). Once the contract begins, the NLS Production Control Section assigns books in a steady stream throughout the year, usually an average of seven to ten books per week, depending on how many books were awarded in the contract with a particular producer. Some books must be sent to a specific studio because they require a narrator working in that studio; for example, later parts of a series begun there or books needing specific languages or technical expertise. All studios are expected to be able to work successfully with all types of books, but, because of location and history, each major studio has some areas in which it is especially proficient. _Current contractors_ Four studios usually bid on the contract jobs and receive awards in varying amounts, depending on the capacity of the contractor and its past performance. The four studios are all nonprofit entities, which by law allows them a price advantage over commercial studios in the awarding of work. The studios belong to the American Foundation for the Blind (AFB), located in New York City; the American Printing House for the Blind (APH), in Louisville, Kentucky; Potomac Talking Book Services (PTBS), in Bethesda, Maryland; and Talking Book Publishers (TBP), in Denver, Colorado. The first two are organizations that have been serving blind people in various ways for many years; the latter are nonprofit entities created expressly to produce books for NLS. _Studio specialties_ _AFB (New York City)._ The American Foundation for the Blind is located in a city that is home to many ethnic groups, so the studio is particularly appropriate for books that need languages or a specific background in a narrator. AFB studio director Tony Henderson is proud of the studio's ability to "take on anything." "We can handle everything from Albanian to Zulu," he says. He cites a South African actress who can provide correct pronunciation of many African-dialect words, including "click" languages. _APH (Louisville, Kentucky)._ American Printing House finds itself the expert on medical books. "We have read three or four books about every disease there is: `Living with...,'" or `How to Cope with...,' says studio director Raymond Randles. "Perhaps our most ambitious project was the Mayo Clinic's _Family Health Care,_ which ran to sixty-six tracks." APH also does a great deal of science fiction, partly, says Randles, because the studio got locked into a series: Star Trek, then Star Trek the Next Generation, and now Star Trek Deep Space 9. A science fiction series illustrates one reason NLS requires that the books in a series be assigned to the same narrator if at all possible. Pronunciations established in the first book are carried over into the next of the series. As the only studio currently able to construct the final tapes for voice indexing, APH receives books requiring this feature, notably NLS's own _Cassette Books_ and _For Younger Readers._ Cookbooks are also excellent candidates for voice indexing. APH also claims expertise in rendering "visual material" verbally. "We have people who can look at a chart or diagram and give the contents in a sentence or two," says Randles. _TBP (Denver, Colorado)._ Talking Book Publishers, which produces many NLS magazines, also claims science fiction expertise, but its unique resource is access to pronunciation and other guidance for Native American languages and books. TBP was pushed into this proficiency when NLS, seeking to enlarge its collection on Native American topics, sent multiple books on this subject to the Denver studio, located as it is near major Native American populations. Studio director Jane Maxwell also cites a narrator with specific skills in producing children's books. "Not cutesy," she says, "but able to convey a child's wonder, awe, and excitement of life," echoing the comments of other studio directors that reading children's books is especially challenging and that it is tempting to over-dramatize. TBP has also tended to specialize in bestsellers, since many of these were offered in both flexible-disc and cassette formats, and the flexible-disc contract was held by the team of Talking Book Publishers and Eva-Tone, a flexible-disc producer. Flexible disc was discontinued as a book format at the end of the 1995 contract. _PTBS (Bethesda, Maryland)._ Although, like other studios, Potomac Talking Book Services produces a cross-section of book types, the studio claims specific expertise in two languages-- Spanish and Vietnamese--and the studio often produces NLS Spanish-language books. When NLS was producing books in Vietnamese, PTB did those also; currently Spanish is the only foreign language in which NLS produces whole books. The other demands for languages are for words or segments in English-language books. _The recording team_ Though the studios vary in size, location, and some logistical approaches, they are virtually identical in their methods, largely because of the specific directives they receive from NLS. Narrating a book is a three-person job. The actual narrator must have acceptable delivery, as determined by an audition tape that must be approved by the NLS Quality Assurance Section before he or she can be put on the studio's list (see p. 4). Though they receive some training, they are usually hired "at the top of their profession," as Henderson says. "We are not a training school," he adds. "The narrators are all professionals." The main adjustment, according to studio directors, is in walking the "tightrope," as Maxwell calls it, of good expression--between a too-flat delivery and over-dramatization. And then, radio people tend to "fill every second of space. We have to tell narrators to pause between chapters and between poems," Henderson explains. The second person involved in producing a recorded book is the monitor. In some studios, the monitor is responsible for research into pronunciations or other aspects of the reading. Some studio directors also help with this, and occasionally a narrator will want to do his or her own research. For books without special difficulties, narrators typically handle their own research. The monitor actually operates the recording equipment and is responsible for correcting mistakes and for laying in tones in tone indexing. The third person, required by NLS to be someone other than the narrator or monitor, is the reviewer, sometimes called the "proofreader." This person must listen to the book in its entirety and list any way in which it fails to meet NLS specs. The list is given to the narratorþmonitor team, who then make the required corrections. The proofreader verifies corrections made by the monitor. After this, studio directors may also "check" the books--what Norton calls the "final final" check--before sending the tape to NLS for quality assurance. Potomac Talking Book Services, he says, does a final check that may vary from 30 to 100 percent listening by the studio director or possibly by a fourth staff member. Recording sessions vary from two to four hours, the latter with a break. Studios have a time constraint also: usually a 5- to 6-track book should take about 45 days to narrate. Because of the audition process, the specific directions, and the in-house monitoring, rejections are few. Of all the people involved in producing a talking book, the narrator is the most important, says Norton. The correct pronunciation of a single word is less important to the enjoyment of a book than the overall delivery, he adds. "The narrator is what people hear." Contractors working for NLS express pride in the quality of their narrators and stress their determination to maintain excellence in the books they produce. --Ruth Nieland (photo caption: Sylvia Dye and Ed Pitts, production control specialists, select books to send to particular contractors. Photo by Jim Higgins.) (photo caption: The three-person recording team: (left) the monitor follows the text as the narrator in the booth reads; later the reviewer again follows in the book while listening to the tape (right). Photos by Jim Higgins.) _Familiar names, wonderful voices_ In studios providing books under contract with NLS, there are currently 115 approved and experienced people qualified to perform the task at hand, according to the list of active narrators maintained by the NLS Production Control Section. In addition, there are 770 inactive (former) narrators, many of whom read diligently and well year after year and provided a multitude of audio texts, most of which are still in the collection and being enjoyed by blind and physically handicapped readers. Readers often ask for more information about the narrators they regard as friends. Obviously, it is not possible to cover all, or even many, of them. The following narrators, selected as long-time favorites, are all currently active, have narrated for many years, and have provided many audio texts. All have many devoted listeners. Their backgrounds and approach to narration are different but probably representative of what various experiences can bring to narration as an art. _Gordon Gould_ Gordon Gould is a man whose knowledge illuminates his readings for American Foundation for the Blind (AFB), which number more than 450, many of them classics. With an undergraduate English degree from Yale and a master's in English from Cambridge, he has narrated at AFB recording studios for twenty-six years. Gould's favorite genre is poetry. "You wouldn't bother writing in verse if you could state the same thing in prose. Verse lends itself to ambiguity." Gould, sixty-six, is also a character actor who plays all sorts of parts on and off Broadway. His most recent Broadway production was _The Merchant of Venice_ in which Dustin Hoffman played Shylock. Gould's favorite play is _Amadeus._ "I see it as a play about the ways of God to man. It is very rich and multilayered." Gould has narrated many classics for the program, including _The Aeneid_ of Virgil, Ovid's _Metamorphoses,_ Edmund Spenser's _The Faerie Queene,_ George Lord Byron's _Don Juan,_ Alfred Lord Tennyson's _The Idylls of the King,_ and the _Complete Poems of e.e. cummings._ "It was difficult with the voice to do the orthography of Cummings," said Gould. "If I'm going to be a reader's eyes, I have to find the music of the words as well as the meaning." _Patrick Horgan_ Patrick Horgan's distinctive light British accent comes from his native Nottingham, England. Born to a pair of British doctors who urged him to go to medical school, he dropped out before final exams, moved to the United States, and became an actor. His first role, appropriately, was in a soap called _Doctors._ He has since played in _One Life to Live,_ which his wife produces, _As the World Turns, Guiding Light, Ryan's Hope,_ and _Edge of Night._ Horgan has also appeared in _Star Trek_ and on other nighttime TV shows. He has trod the boards in a dozen Broadway plays. One of his roles was Professor Higgins in _My Fair Lady._ Horgan, sixty-seven, has worked at AFB since 1959 and has narrated 493 books. Intellectually, he has devoted his life to understanding James Joyce's _Finnegan's Wake._ "Joyce is trying to explain that everything is all part of the same thing. He is creating the universe from an original speck of something, like a big bang, and showing that the same is true of language and character," said Horgan, who added that he enjoys hearing from people who read his narration of the work. Horgan lives in Wilton, Connecticut, with his wife, a six-year-old son, and four dogs. _Suzanne Toren_ Suzanne Toren has narrated 1,000 books for AFB since she started there in 1974. A native of New York City who always wanted to be an actor, Toren grew up in the Bronx, the daughter of parents born in Poland. She is skilled in narrating books that call for Yiddish, Eastern European, and Russian pronunciations. She speaks French. Toren has performed as a character actor on and off Broadway and in regional theaters. She played Marsha in _The Seagull,_ Bea in _View from the Bridge,_ and Paulina in _The Winter's Tale._ She particularly enjoys new plays, which are in some ways similar to narrating books, she said. "If I have a connection with the author, if it is well written, then I have a connection with the audience." Toren, forty-nine, has narrated many children's books. She has a son who is five and likes to play sports, particularly hockey and soccer. On many weekend days she finds herself cheering for him on the sidelines in Central Park. _Andy Chappell_ Andy Chappell went to Louisville in 1948 to work in radio and TV broadcasting. "TV was just beginning when I got here. Back then you could drink beer and smoke on camera," recalled Chappell, who got out of the business in 1974 and has been selling real estate ever since. In 1953 he did a little volunteer narration for APH; then in 1956 he began to narrate two or three times a week. By 1959 he was doing it for pay, and in 1963 he started narrating _Guideposts,_ which he continued to do for thirty years. He enjoyed the upbeat real-life stories about faith, emotions, family, and human relations. "Norman Vincent Peale tried to convey his enthusiasm for what he believed in," said Chappell. Chappell, who has a music background, also enjoyed reading _Hi-Fi Stereo Review,_ and rolling his r's when narrating the Spanish version of _Reader's Digest._ In addition to the continuous magazine narration, he has read 350 books ranging from Dr. Seuss's _Oh the Places You'll Go_ to the _World Book Encyclopedia._ Chappell said he owes a great deal to long-time APH employee Tina Lou Wallace, who started with the school for the blind in 1932 and worked with the recording program until the 1980s. He called her a "benevolent despot. If she didn't know it, it wasn't a word. Words have changed in the last thirty to forty years. She changed with the times." _Mitzi Friedlander_ Mitzi Friedlander is a former singer whose first performance was at the age of twenty-two, when she played Madam Flora in The Medium for the premiere professional performance of the Kentucky Opera Association. Friedlander was born in Louisville and trained there with opera teachers who had studied in Italy. She sang in fifteen to twenty operas and thirty-five to forty musicals, and acted in numerous plays. "I have been able to do it here where I was born and raised. I could not have done the breadth of things I have done, from opera, musical theater, and teaching, to this thing I love most-- narrating talking books--if I had left my hometown. I feel very fortunate to be able to do these books." Friedlander enjoys narrating fiction the most, especially juvenile fiction. She is often given difficult biographies because she is able to handle foreign phrases well. She says she is "almost conversant" in French and has sung a lot in Italian and German. Her mother's family was a musical one from southern Louisiana, where many Germans had settled in the mid-1800s, bringing with them songs and string quartets. Friedlander has been with APH for more than thirty years, in which time she has narrated some 980 books. Friedlander lives in Louisville with her husband. She has two grown children and two "grand-dogs," both spaniels. _Chuck Benson_ Chuck Benson is about as close as you get to a cowboy these days. He lives in a ranch house in Littleton, Colorado, rides horses in the Rockies in his spare time, and does a good John Wayne imitation. "Well--all right," he drawls deeply. Benson had a thirty-year career as a middle-of-the-road radio talk-show host in Chicago, Dallas, Houston, and Buffalo, New York. Now a voice personality, he does a lot of commercial work in addition to narrating books for TBP. "Of everything I do, without question, narrating is the most difficult and rewarding, especially when I hear from people who read along with me from various parts of the country." He makes a point of calling people back when he receives fan mail that includes a phone number. "I learn what people really like and listen to," said Benson, who himself prefers to narrate action books with adventure, mystery, murder, and mayhem. Benson, sixty, has three grown children and two grandchildren. A recent Saturday afternoon found him with his wife and her sister riding at eleven thousand feet at the top of a mountain with elk and deer all around. _Bob Askey_ Bob Askey, a narrator for Talking Book Publishers (TBP) in Denver, went to the University of Nebraska with Johnny Carson and Dick Cavett. "Those guys went on to fame and fortune," said Askey, who chose instead to "put beans on the table" for his family. He worked his way through college and got a job as a radio announcer in 1949, moving to weather when the station introduced TV in 1953. After eleven years of broadcasting, he won an award from the International Broadcasters Association. While in Hollywood to receive it, he got an offer from a station with studios in the Disneyland hotel. Walking through the orange groves in shirt sleeves, he decided there was too much unrest in California, and went back to the dead February of Lincoln, Nebraska, where his wife and young sons were waiting. "The road not taken is always the one you wonder about," he says. Askey moved to Colorado in 1966 and has been at different Denver radio stations ever since. He started doing talking books part time in 1974 and has since made it a full-time career because, he said simply, the hours were better. "If I can bring some happiness and enjoyment to people, that makes me happy," added Askey, who often responds to fan mail by cassette or letter, ending with one of his favorite sayings: "May you have money, health, love, and the time to enjoy them." Besides being a narrator, Askey is a regular speaker at network libraries. _Terry Hayes Sales_ Terry Hayes Sales is a philanthropist whose kindness reaches beyond the thousands of books she has narrated for APH. Sales gave "seed" money so people who are blind or have low vision can receive audio description of the scenery and action between the lines of dialog during productions at the Kentucky Center for the Arts. "It's really taking off," said Sales, noting the service has been picked up in other places in Kentucky and the nation. Sales, a Louisville resident, has been narrating books for APH for more than fifty years. She has received the Talking Book Hall of Fame Award from the American Foundation for the Blind for significant lifetime achievement in recording talking books. A native of Chicago, Sales got her start singing for a Saturday morning radio show when she was fifteen. She went off to Stanford for a year, married, and moved to Louisville. She sang for two radio stations and performed in professional and semiprofessional plays. She was at a play rehearsal when another actress told her that APH was starting to record books on tape, and she has been there almost since the inception, save for a six-year stint while her husband was stationed in Chicago with the navy. During that time, she hosted a weekly radio interview show for women. "It's been a very rewarding career," she says, past tense, although she's just recently played the part of a woman going to a pharmacist in a TV commercial for a health-insurance company, and she just finished narrating the autobiography of Lindy Boggs, _Washington through a Purple Veil._ Although her favorite genre is the novel, she says she enjoys narrating books she might not read herself because she learns from them. "That's been to me sort of an extra bonus in doing this work." _Pam Ward_ Pam Ward is a single mother who was separated from her husband before her son was born and had to decide whether to get a "real job" or become an actress. "It's tricky when you're not in New York or L.A.," said Ward, who had worked in dinner theaters. Now her son is almost grown, and Ward, fifty, makes her living doing announcements of the "coming up next" ilk for television stations around the country. She also does industrial films and other film work. "The talking books have been so wonderful," said Ward, a narrator at TBP since 1980. "It gave me some stability in addition to the things I do. It was like getting paid to practice. After I started meeting the patrons, I realized it meant a lot more than that," said Ward, who later could have quit, but didn't. Her favorite book that she has recorded is _Fried Green Tomatoes._ A familiar voice for autobiographies, she has narrated those of Linda Ellerbee and Dolly Parton. "When you have a first-person book, it's one long character study. It's as if I become the vehicle for the person who has written the book." When reading to herself, she likes the work of Margaret Atwood, although she describes herself as an omnivorous reader of "brain candy" like books by Dean Koontz. In addition, she recently read and enjoyed _Snow Falling on Cedars._ Back in the studio, Ward enjoys narrating juvenile fiction, for which she won the Alexander Scourby Award in 1991 from the American Foundation for the Blind. "That meant more to me than any other accolade or award I've ever received in my life." _Roy Avers_ Roy Avers comes across as gruff as the basso he sings in the Louisville Opera. When he first began to narrate at the American Printing House for the Blind (APH), his colleagues were frightened. They thought he was forbidding and stern, and the suit and tie he wore didn't help. "Later they realized I'm a pussy cat," said Avers. Serious in person, he saves the emotion for his narrating. "I can't swear at people in the business world," he deadpans. Avers prefers to read fiction because it allows him to portray different characters and display feelings using his voice. As a youth, Avers wanted to be a radio announcer. "I would repeat what the announcer said in the way he said it." In college, he started in journalism but switched to theater arts. Meanwhile, he married and soon had children. After graduation, he entered the business world to make a living. In his forties, Avers started doing volunteer work as a textbook narrator, but was directed to APH because his voice was too emotive. He has been there since 1976. Now a semi-retired computer consultant, he is free to narrate more books. Avers, sixty-three, lives in Louisville with his wife. He has four children, one step-daughter, three grandchildren, and two adopted grandchildren. _Madelyn Buzzard_ Madelyn Buzzard is a trained actor who envisions the audience as she narrates works ranging from children's books to medical texts. A graduate of the American Academy of Dramatic Arts in New York, she was a traveling performer who played many roles in dinner theater. "I miss the interaction with the audience. I try to envision someone in my mind as I project the book to them, so maybe what I'm saying is reaching them." Apparently it works, for she has had feedback from all quarters, even from those who enjoy the medical books she has narrated. Buzzard enjoys narrating mysteries, science fiction, and children's books, where again, her experience as an actor colors her narration. "Children's theater is very interactive. When I read children's books I can put a little more life into them." Buzzard, fifty, has narrated 650 titles in fourteen years at APH. She lives on the banks of the Ohio River in Louisville with her husband and has three step-children and two step-grandchildren. --Yvonne French (photo caption: Gordon Gould.) (photo caption: Patrick Horgan.) (photo caption: Suzanne Toren.) (photo caption: Andy Chappell.) (photo caption: Mitzi Friedlander.) (photo caption: Chuck Benson.) (photo caption: Bob Askey.) (photo caption: Terry Hayes Sales.) (photo caption: Pam Ward.) (photo caption: Roy Avers.) (photo caption: Madelyn Buzzard.) _Talking-book narrator: master juggler_ _by Laura Giannarelli_ The work of narration is essentially a kind of translation, a translation of material from a print medium into an audio medium, from the written word to the spoken word. Narrators make myriad decisions each time they draw breath to read aloud, decisions that definitively shape the final recording. This article outlines some of these decisions; in other words, it gives some insight into the challenging work of a professional talking-book narrator. As you may have guessed, it's not as easy as most narrators make it sound. When I advise a new narrator in our NLS studio, I liken our work to that of a juggler in the circus, keeping multiple balls in the air. For the experienced narrator, this juggling act becomes almost second nature, but a novice is apt to feel overwhelmed by all those balls threatening to crash to the ground at any moment. It's quite a feat, after all, to control the many different elements necessary to reading aloud with accuracy, clarity, fluidity, artistic sensitivity to the author's intent, and all those other essentials. And don't forget making it sound natural, conversational, and effortless! The different elements that must be kept in mind while narrating fall into two general categories: narration skills and what might be called (for lack of an appropriate formal phrase) "How does it _look?_"/"How should it _sound_?" The categories will be discussed separately, but bear in mind that when that red "record" light goes on, the narrator is doing it all at once. First, narration skills: The narrator must have good breath control to be able to phrase sentences at will, that is, to pause because it clarifies the meaning, not because one is gasping for air. Narrators must possess crisp, clear articulation so the listener will easily understand what is being read; they must possess the ability to vary pacing, rhythm, tempo, and intensity to provide the recording with the vocal variety that makes it pleasant to listen to, whether the book extends to twenty sides or is only a single side. A good narrator also maintains a steady volume level; you develop the ability to "whisper" without getting too soft and "shout" without getting so loud as to cause distortion in the recording. And a good narrator has a reasonably wide vocal range, so that the voice isn't constantly hitting the same paltry notes, but is high-pitched or low, full-bodied or thin depending on the demands of the story and its characters. Next comes the marriage of these basic narrative skills, the tools of reading aloud as it were, with the interpretation of the text of a print book into an audio book. This is the really hard part! When preparing a book for recording, the narrator must consider all the clues given by the author: the atmosphere or mood suggested by the writing style, the seriousness or levity of the author's tone, the qualities possessed by the various characters who people the book. The narrator must decide what tone to take in reading the book aloud to be true to the author's intent. The listener must be able to tell one character from another even in dialog that's rendered in print without any "he said/she said" clues. And dialog must be distinguishable from narrative text. So the narrator must vary rhythm, pitch, and intensity to clearly achieve these distinctions. (And yet, caricature is to be avoided at all costs; subtlety is the key.) The narrator must be sensitive to the movement of the text and adjust tempo, pitch, and rhythm accordingly so that, for example, the languid love scene isn't read at breakneck speed, nor the thrilling climax of a spy novel at a monotonous plod. In short, the narrator must employ the interpretive skills of the actor to render the print text in aural form while exercising the restraint that allows listeners to use their imaginations as they read the audio book. The format and layout of the print book also affect the narrator's rendition more than you might suppose. The narrator must translate blank space on the print page (between sections of a chapter, for example) into pauses: the eye registers the space between sections of print text; the ear must be afforded the same rest. Or, when confronted with a novel that begins each chapter with a quote from Shakespeare or the Bible, the narrator must make sure that the quote is set off from the story in the audio book, just as it is set off visually on the page of the print book. Sections of text in _boldface type_ or ALL CAPS, dialog rendered "breathless...and...halting...by...ellipses" all require some decision on the part of the narrator to determine how best to convey to the listener the flavor of the print text. Nonfiction books with charts, graphs, and footnotes present special challenges: whether to place supplemental information within the author's text or at the end of a chapter, for instance. Each book is different and must be considered on its own merits, but always the narrator must decide how the print text is laid out, how it looks, and consequently, how it should _sound_. Finally, there is the mystery of reading aloud one sentence after another in a fluid, cogent manner--the essence of the juggling act. For the narrator sitting in a soundproof booth and reading into a microphone is simultaneously doing all of these artistic and interpretive tasks and more. He or she is at one and the same time reading a particular sentence, mentally thinking back over the sentence just read to verify that all is as yet on track, _and_ casting half an eye, as it were, toward the next sentence to scan for troublesome tongue-twisters and other booby traps. Is a talking-book narrator a master juggler? The answer seems to be a resounding Yes! (_Laura Giannarelli_ is a native Washingtonian and a longtime narrator of talking books. She has worked at NLS since 1979 as a triple threat: narrator, monitor, and reviewer. In those seventeen years she has narrated 246 books including how-to books, biographies, serious nonfiction, classics, romances, bestsellers, and children's literature. In 1990 she was honored with an Alexander Scourby Award from the American Foundation for the Blind for her narration of children's books. Favorite authors whose work she has narrated include Laura Ingalls Wilder, Joyce Carol Oates, Isak Dinesen, and Florence King. When not recording talking books, Giannarelli performs regularly in Washington area theaters and does the occasional industrial film or commercial voiceover. She graduated summa cum laude from The Catholic University of America in 1978 with a B.A. in drama and French. She is a founding member of the Washington Stage Guild, a past president and current board member of Washington's Actors' Center, and serves on the executive board of the League of Washington Theaters.) (photo caption: Laura Giannarelli juggling elements of narration. Photo by Jim Higgins.) _Look it up? Where??_ _by Ray Hagen_ One of the biggest surprises to folks who inquire about narrating books--and a not altogether happy surprise--is that some books will require research. "Research? You mean, like, work??" You bet, and thank you for calling. Pick up any current nonfiction work (biography, memoir, history, expos‚, and the like) and flip to the index at the back of the book. Lots of names there, maybe hundreds. How many of them can you pronounce correctly? How many of them do you merely think you can pronounce correctly? A dozen maybe? Good for you. Now, what about the remaining six dozen? Write them down. Then start thumbing through the book for the sort of stuff not found in most indexes: street names, grade schools, childhood chums, foreign phrases, local slang, favorite boutiques, Romanian airports, Japanese newspapers, character names from plays and movies, professional acronyms, names of pets.... Write them down. And don't forget the author's name. Not 100 percent positive? Write that down, too. (You are, of course, certain of how to pronounce the publisher's name, right?) But time is passing, you haven't set foot in the recording booth, and you have five or six handwritten pages of names and words that you now have to RESEARCH. No, we're not having fun yet. We are having second thoughts. Time to hit the dictionaries: standard, biographical, geographical, technical (name your field), foreign, whatever you can get your hands on. After which you'll no doubt be left with such unanswered items as street names, grade schools, childhood chums, foreign phrases, local slang, favorite boutiques, Romanian airports, Japanese newspapers, character names from plays and movies, professional acronyms, names of pets.... Stuff, in other words, that only the author is likely to know. Aha--the author! Who (if not dead) may or may not know this stuff either, but we're in dire straits now, so let's give it a whirl. Check out the "About the Author" section of the book jacket; any hints as to where he or she lives or works? Many authors are actually listed in the local phone book. Or maybe the book's editor can help. If you actually reach your author(s) and don't sound too much like a serial killer, they're invariably appreciative of your efforts and happy to help. Best of all, this is your last stop. Whatever's left, wing it. But there is one last step: writing all this research down on your pronunciation list. And not just so you can read it; the reviewers, monitors, and studio staff also have to be able to read it. Learning a consistent diacritical system is essential, as is writing it out clearly and carefully. That's how the staff communicates information in this peculiar line of work. Now you can walk into the booth and finally begin. And try to remember why you wanted this job in the first place. (_Ray Hagen_ was born in Brooklyn, New York, and raised in Manhattan. From 1957 to 1972, he was an "all-purpose actor-dancer-singer" on and off Broadway. He also played nightclubs and did TV and road tours. More or less concurrently (1962-1974), he wrote articles on film history and interviews with film stars for many magazines and coauthored _The American Movies Reference Book,_ published in 1969. He also coauthored two plays, _Grave Diggers of 1971_ (1970) and _Miss Stanwyck Is Still in Hiding_ (1979), both produced off-Broadway. Hagen started as a narrator in the NLS studio in 1973 and served for a few years as studio director, but found he preferred narrating to management. He is now narrating his 389th book. The author he has most frequently recorded is Isaac Bashevis Singer, with thirteen titles. Among titles he lists as most fun to record are Armistead Maupin's six-part Tales of the City series, _Auntie Mame_ by Patrick Dennis, and John Cleese's TV series _Fawlty Towers._) __Say How?__ How does a narrator know how to pronounce the names of rock stars, politicians in the news, up-and-coming movie stars, or current Olympic athletes? _Say How? A Pronunciation Guide to Names of Public Figures _gives the answers. Researched and - written by NLS narrator Ray Hagen, this ready-reference listing contains more than 8,500 names with their accompanying pronunciations. The publication has been a work in progress for the past fourteen years. When Hagen began narrating books for NLS, he quickly realized that most published biographical dictionaries couldn't provide needed information for the pronunciation of the names of current popular figures. Dictionaries are "fine for historical names," says Hagen, "but most don't include listings for people who are still alive. Nonfiction books that we narrate in the studio are often loaded with the names of such people." NLS specifications for book narration call for correct pronunciations verifiable by authoritative sources. Pronunciation of names is particularly important, and the specifications state, "Proper names...shall be pronounced with extreme care and accuracy." So starting in 1982, Hagen began compiling names and pronunciations on three-by-five index cards. "I've always been fascinated with the pronunciations of people's names because I grew up in the days of radio, and I listened to how public figures said their names," says Hagen. The first entries were for people such as Francis Ford Coppola (KOHP-u-luh) and Martin Scorsese (sk“r-SES-ee) and others from the movie industry, which particularly interests Hagen. Fellow narrators in the studio contributed information for sports, politics, and other areas. This continued for about a month until a large shoebox was filled with cards. The collection grew over the years until five shoeboxes were filled. In 1992 Hagen began to compile the names on a computer. NLS assistant automation officer Lloyd Lewis made this feat technically possible by setting up a program for entering diacritical marks into a computer file. The first edition of _Say How?,_ numbering eighty-eight pages, was soon born. Since that time, the studio continues to collect names, and the publication is updated every six months to include new listings. Current events often dictate what names will appear in books narrated in the recording studio. Hagen keeps notes when he listens to the radio and watches television as a source for new listings. "You get to know which sources you can trust," says Hagen, referring to television and radio announcers. Hagen and other narrators also call authors, editors, and publishers to verify pronunciation of unusual or unknown names appearing in books. The results of this research are added to the next edition of _Say How?_ Knowing whether a pronunciation is correct is an ongoing challenge, especially for many American names that have foreign origins. "The way the person pronounces his or her name is always the ultimate authority," according to Hagen. The diacritical marks used in _Say How?_ follow standard pronunciation symbols used in most dictionaries. NLS narrators use the symbols on a daily basis as a written means of communicating information on how to properly say a word. Because the marks are easily understood, the listing is universally usable. NLS publishes a new edition of _Say How?_ every January and July and sends the publication to all contract studios and many volunteer operations around the country. Hagen says he "looks forward to any additions that other studios may wish to contribute." --George Thuronyi (photo caption: "Let's look in here," says NLS narrator Ray Hagen when asked a pronunciation question. The extensive NLS collection of sources includes _Say How?__,_ Hagen's own compilation of name pronunciations. Photo by Jim Higgins.) _Alexander Scourby, 1913þ1985_ The most revered of NLS narrators is Alexander Scourby, who began recording books for NLS in 1937. In the forty-seven years after Raphael Sabitini's _Captain Blood,_ he recorded some 425 books at the studios of the American Foundation for the Blind (AFB) in New York City. He was preparing _The Book Class,_ by Louis Auchincloss, at the time of his death in 1985. Over nearly half a century, his mellow voice captivated patrons with much of the world's great literature, including Homer's _Iliad_ and _Odyssey; Ulysses_ by James Joyce; and works by Thomas Mann, T.S. Eliott, Vladimir Nabokov, Henry James, and F. Scott Fitzgerald. His aim to present each thought clearly, to break up the phrasing "in such a way that the mind catches it," helped make his recordings come to life for readers. His acting career included roles on the stage, on TV, in radio, and in films. He was also a highly respected voice-over narrator for documentaries such as the classic 1960 series _Victory at Sea._ He hosted National Public Television's _Live from the Met_ series and toured the country as the voice of his favorite poet in _Walt Whitman's America._ Scourby's recording of the King James Bible, which took four years to complete, is considered a tour de force of narration, although he did not consider it his most difficult work. NLS reissued the recording last year to meet the continuing demand. At an awards ceremony in 1982, NLS honored Scourby for forty-five years of artistic excellence that brought joy into the lives of blind and physically handicapped readers. Looking back over his career, Scourby observed, "The recordings for the blind are perhaps the greatest achievement. I can honestly say that the work in my life, with almost no exception, that has given me the greatest gratification has been...reading talking books." (photo caption: Frank Kurt Cylke (left), NLS director, and Alexander Scourby at a 1982 ceremony honoring Scourby's forty-five years of narrating books.) _The Program_ The National Library Service for the Blind and Physically Handicapped of the Library of Congress publishes books and magazines in braille and in recorded form on discs and cassettes for readers who cannot hold, handle, or see well enough to read conventional print because of a temporary or permanent visual or physical handicap. Through a national network of state and local libraries, the materials are loaned free to eligible readers in the United States and to U.S. citizens living abroad. Materials are sent to readers and returned by postage-free mail. _Books and Magazines_ Readers may borrow all types of popular-interest books including bestsellers, classics, mysteries, westerns, poetry, history, biographies, religious literature, children's books, and foreign-language materials. Readers may also subscribe to more than seventy popular magazines in braille and recorded formats. _Special Equipment_ Special equipment needed to play the discs and cassettes, which are recorded at slower than conventional speeds, is loaned indefinitely to readers. An amplifier with headphone is available for blind and physically handicapped readers who are also certified as hearing impaired. Other devices are provided to aid readers with mobility impairments in using playback machines. _Eligibility_ You are eligible for the Library of Congress program if: -- You are legally blind--your vision in the better eye is 20/200 or less with correcting glasses, or your widest diameter of visual field is no greater than 20 degrees; -- You cannot see well enough or focus long enough to read standard print, although you wear glasses to correct your vision; -- You are unable to handle print books or turn pages because of a physical handicap; or -- You are certified by a medical doctor as having a reading disability, due to an organic dysfunction, which is of sufficient severity to prevent reading in a normal manner. _How to Apply_ You may request an application by writing NLS or calling toll-free 1-800-424-9100, and your name will be referred to your cooperating library. _News_ is published quarterly by:_ National Library Service for the Blind and Physically Handicapped Library of Congress Washington, DC 20542 All correspondence should be addressed to the attention of Publications and Media Section. Editor: Vicki Fitzpatrick