Old Tech Offers New Opportunities for Visually Impaired

Altrusa Club and Door County Library collaborate in Playaway initiative

Some 6.3% of all Door County residents self-identify as having “vision difficulty” – 299 people (2%) ages 18-64, and 338 people ages 65 and older (4.3%) – according to a Wisconsin Department of Health and Human Services report that used data from the 2015-19 U.S. Census.

Patti Ligman is one of them.

“I use the Library for the Blind and Visually Impaired, but the wait time for current books is very long,” Ligman said. “Tina [Kakuske, director of the Door County Library] is in my book club, so I called her one day to seek help, and she mentioned Playaways.”

A Playaway is a brand of pre-loaded, portable media player designed for circulation in libraries. It uses AAA batteries and can power about 30 hours of listening. The device is roughly the size of a deck of cards, and all that’s required to listen is a pair of headphones or an auxiliary cord to plug into a car or speaker system.

The players were introduced in 2005 as an alternative to CDs and cassette tapes, which were disappearing as streaming options became more popular. The devices were meant to be simple to use and easy to travel with.

Ligman is a member of the Altrusa Club of Door County (ACDC), and she took the Playaway idea back to the club. Altrusa is a national nonprofit organization for professional women that focuses on community-service initiatives. Local chapters determine their own service projects, and the Door County chapter places a strong emphasis on literacy. Partnering with the Door County Library, the two entities have been working to provide books in Braille and large print to members of the community with visual impairments as part of the Literacy for the Blind program.

“During 2020, we began to look at expanding this project,” said Peg Wepner, grant liaison for ACDC. “[The program] was renamed Literacy for the Visually Impaired. This allowed us a broader scope of individuals we might be able to assist.”

The result is an initiative for ACDC to provide 48 Playaway audiobooks to the Door County Library system.

“It’s a really nice format for folks who don’t have a device to play on; they don’t have the ability to stream; they have low vision perhaps,” Kakuske said. “It fits a niche in the book-reading world.”

It also fills what will likely be a growing need in Door County, where the population is older than in other areas of the state – the median age was 53 in 2020 – and where large swaths of the peninsula can’t stream content because of poor internet service. 

The goal of this new effort is for ACDC to provide the libraries with 48 Playaways, for a total of $4,080. So far ACDC has donated $1,200 as it continues to raise funds for this year and the years to come.

The Door County Library system currently has 39 Playaways available, with 15 more on order. Like other materials in its system, the library can borrow Playaways from other libraries in its consortia, allowing residents access to an additional 1,210 Playaway options.

Library patrons can check out Playaways as they do other materials – through the digital library catalog or by stopping at a local branch, where a librarian can point patrons in the right direction.

“We hope that this will become a popular format for all readers who have difficulty reading print,” Ligman said.

To support the Playaway project, send donations to the Altrusa Club of Door County, P.O. Box 523, Sturgeon Bay, WI 54235. Include a note that the donation is to be used for a Playaway purchase. Donations can also be sent to the Door County Library. Donors may indicate a specific branch; otherwise, the money will go into the larger pool of funds.