Each year on January 4th, we celebrate World Braille Day. World Braille Day is an international day of awareness to highlight the importance of braille as a means of communication for blind and low vision people. It is celebrated annually on January 4th, which is the birthday of Louis Braille, the inventor of the braille code. At SSB, we are committed to ensuring Louis Braille's gift to the world endures by providing braille transcriptions for all Minnesotans who need it.

Dani Reilly is an active 15-year-old and a 9th grader in Apple Valley. She plays clarinet in band and orchestra and has participated in blind hockey – a version of hockey with an audible puck for blind and low vision players – since 6th grade. Dani is also a braille reader, reading braille in both Spanish and English along with the braille code for music notation.

"I read the braille music and then memorize it," Dani shares, "I prefer learning music this way because it gives me a better sense of what the composer wrote."

Dani says she appreciates "The directness of braille." While she uses audio and electronic text for some of her school material, she prefers braille for math, English, and for taking notes.

The braille code that Dani relies on every day came about because of the ingenuity of another 15-year-old from 200 years ago. In 1825, Louis Braille was 15 and a student at the National Institute for Blind Youth in Paris France when he began work on the reading code that would be named in his honor.

Before Louis Braille's invention, other tactile reading codes had been developed for the blind. As Braille realized, these codes – many of which were simple raised line replications of the Roman alphabet – were cumbersome and difficult to decipher. What was needed was a system that could be readily identified by the pad of one finger.

Adapting a code that was used for nighttime communication by the French Army, the young Louis Braille got to work adapting his system of raised dots. Beginning in the school year of 1825, Louis tested his code with his fellow students, and, over the course of two years, continued to refine the system until he had a code that was easy to use and reproduce. Though it was preferred by the blind community, it would take another 100 years before Braille's was adopted as the international standard for writing and reading for the blind.

For the past 75 years, SSB has been transcribing books and other materials into braille for students and adult consumers across the state. In collaboration with the Minnesota Department of Education, SSB produces textbooks for students, including Dani. Other materials transcribed include textbooks for college students, special projects like menus for restaurants, bulletins used at religious services, and other special requests sent in through our website.

"Braille is a key to literacy, a door to opportunity, and a steppingstone for success," says Braille Supervisor Jay Maruska, "And, all this is possible because of the genius and tenacity of a 15-year-old named Louis Braille."