PRESS RELEASE
February 2009
FOR IMMEDIATE RELEASE
CONTACT: Judith Dixon, Chairperson
Braille Authority of North America
PHONE: 1-202-707-0722
E-MAIL: <mailto:jdix@loc.gov>jdix@loc.gov
BANA Creates Braille Excellence Award
In honor of the 200th birthday of Louis Braille, The Braille
Authority of North America (BANA) has created the Braille Excellence
Award. This award will be given to people or organizations that have
developed or contributed to a code, have developed code materials, or
software that supports codes, and/or who represent the highest
standards of braille production. The first award is being given to
Dr. Abraham Nemeth for his contributions making math and science
accessible for blind people around the world.
Abraham Nemeth was born completely blind in 1918, in New York City,
where he spent most of his life. Although mathematics instantly
became a passion for Nemeth, he was encouraged by his counselors to
pursue a degree in psychology at Brooklyn College. Following his
bachelor's degree, he continued his education at Columbia University,
where he earned his master's in psychology, while attending evening
classes in physics and mathematics. As the math courses became
increasingly more difficult, Nemeth proceeded to develop his own
system of braille mathematics, adopted in the U.S. in 1952, named the
Nemeth Braille Code for Mathematics and Science Notation. Shortly
after the development of his code, he joined the Department of
Mathematics at the University of Detroit, where he created a system
of communicating mathematical formulas, called MathSpeak. During this
time Nemeth received a Ph.D in mathematics from Wayne State
University. Abraham Nemeth's contributions have made math and science
accessible for blind people around the world.
The Braille Excellence Award will be presented at the Spring BANA
Board meeting to be held in conjunction with the California
Transcribers and Educators of the Visually Handicapped (CTEVH)
conference in March, 2009. The award will be presented at the CTEVH
brunch on Sunday, March 15 at 10:00 a.m.
BANA will meet from March 15-17, 2009 at the San Francisco Airport
Marriott Hotel. This meeting is being hosted by CTEVH, a BANA member
organization, and overlaps with their annual conference.
The mission and purpose of the Braille Authority of North America are
to assure literacy for tactile readers through the standardization of
braille and/or tactile graphics. BANA promotes and facilitates the
use, teaching and production of braille. It publishes rules,
interprets and renders opinions pertaining to braille in all existing
codes. It deals with codes now in existence or to be developed in the
future, in collaboration with other countries using English braille.
In exercising its function and authority, BANA considers the effects
of its decisions on other existing braille codes and formats; the
ease of production by various methods; and acceptability to readers.
For additional resource information, visit www.brailleauthority.org.
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