Vashon’s Low Vision Group wants to thank the King County Library System and the Vashon Library for their support of our interest in continuing to read. I know this sounds foolish, but for us, reading has become a major challenge due to our eye diseases. Not only do we have to buy non-prescription reading glasses periodically, increasing their strength from time to time, but also ask family and friends to read to us.

Many of us have given up the struggle to read not renewing favorite magazine subscriptions, which by the way, our library has. Explaining this problem to our library staff prompted them to ask the system’s technical department to investigate optical readers. This they did, resulting in the grand state-of-the-art CCTV-OCR you see upon entering our library’s front door.

This machine allows the viewer to adjust the screen for font size and color with the contrast to suit the reader. It also allows the reader to listen to the document in speech mode with a selection of 28 different languages. We are tickled to death over this acquisition as now we will be able to read our favorite publications once again. If you notice the machine as you enter the library, do join us in thanking our amazingly responsive library staff.

—Dorothy Napoli