AIRS (Access to Information and Reading Services) is part of Gateshead Council's library service. We are unique - as far as we know - in being the only council in the UK to offer a free regular talking newspaper service to local residents, accessible library and information services, and a range of transcription services to local and national information providers.

The talking newspaper service was originally started as a project in 1987 and was followed a couple of years later by the transcription service. Both services officially became part of the library service in 1994, demonstrating the council's early and ongoing commitment to providing accessible information for people who are unable to read standard print.

Talking Newspaper
AIRS produces and delivers its talking newspaper and magazine service on audio cassette four times a week to residents in Gateshead free of charge, and on subscription to our regional and national listeners (the full service is available to non-Gateshead residents for a small subscription fee). We have our own recording studios and team of full-time and part-time readers/researchers who all write for and read on our tapes, plus regular external contributors such as church ministers and local writing group members.

Transcription Service
AIRS has an extensive transcription service, converting a wide variety of print information such as birthday cards, financial and utilities statements, leaflets and company literature into large print, Braille and audio cassette. We can also translate English into British Sign Language (BSL), the first or preferred language of approximately 250,000 people in the UK. We can provide tactile maps and plans on swell paper to help make venues, exhibitions and displays more accessible for visually impaired people.

Accessible Library Services
Our Information Assistant (Braille), who is blind, and Information Assistant (British Sign Language), who is a Deaf BSL user, work closely with our library colleagues to make our services accessible for sensory impaired people. For example, we run two Visually Impaired Readers' Groups with more than 20 partially sighted or blind members who read large print or Braille or listen to audio books. The groups meet once a month in Blaydon Library and Gateshead Central Library respectively. Books we have read so far include:

'Bel Canto' by Ann Patchett

'Harry Potter and the Philosopher's Stone' by J K Rowling

'Notes from a Small Island' by Bill Bryson

'Girl with a Pearl Earring' by Tracey Chevalier

'Northern Lights' by Philip Pullman

'Mrs Fytton's Country Life' by Mavis Cheek

'All Bones and Lies' by Anne Fine

As part of Local History Month 2003, we ran a series of family history workshops for Deaf people, given by a local Deaf person (in BSL) who had researched his own family tree. As a result of these workshops, we set up further family history sessions for Deaf people, with the help of a grant from NEMLAC (North East Museums, Libraries and Archives Council), and Internet training for Deaf people.

Also with the help of NEMLAC, we run storytelling sessions in BSL for Deaf children and their hearing siblings. As part of Deaf Awareness Week 2005, we organised Gateshead Libraries' first ever Deaf Art Exhibition, featuring the work of two local Deaf artists.

Contact Details

Tel 0191 433 8450

Fax 0191 477 7852

e-mail airs@gateshead.gov.uk

Minicom 0191 478 4839

SMS 07887 628004 (text messages only)

Videophone 0191 478 5986