Durable technology might seem like a contradiction in terms in the context of communications systems that become obsolete with passing fads and trends, but the Library's talking books have given millions of blind and physically disabled people free, reliable access to audio versions of books and magazines for 69 years. Since the first talking book was recorded on a vinyl audio disc in 1933, the Library's National Library Service for the Blind and Physically Handicapped (NLS) has made only one major change in talking-book technology―to analog tape recordings and tape cassette playback machines in the 1970s. Even then, many users continued to listen to long-playing records on old record players created specifically for the talking-book program.
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