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	FUREAI BUNKO
	(Library of Braille Picture Books for Children)
	Fureai Bunko is a service that translates published children's picture books into braille and lends them free to readers through the mail all over Japan. The process involves pasting into a book plastic sheet imprinted with the text in braille and cut out in the out-lines of the illustrations. Supplementary explanations are also added in braille for the sight-impaired readers to tell them what the page is like as a whole.
	Ms. Iwata brought up her own children using these books and founded this Fureai Bunko in 1984 in order to share the joy of such books with others with sight impairment. The creation of braille picture books is done completely by hand by volunteers.
	The majority of readers are visually impaired parents bringing up children with normal vision. The number of books in our library has increased each year to a collection of over 5,000 titles.
	One of the notable results of our efforts over the years has been the increase in readers who want copies of braille picture books to keep. To respond to these requests, we have begun a private braille translation and distribution service.
	The library is operated as a part of Association of Culture Promotion for the Visually Handicapped, which is non-profit organization approved by the government.
	Main statistics of our activity in 2001 are listed below:
	Number of books owned	6,464 titles
	Number of books lended	5,636 volumes
	Number of readers lended	190 families
	Fureai Bunko represented by Mitsuko Iwata
	1-25-35, Edobori,Nishi-ku,
	Osaka 550-0002, Japan
	TEL/FAX 06-6441-0035

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