Printing of other publications 3

Printing > Section 3 Braille Printing

Blind people are also members of the extended family. Although they have lost their visual function, they still have sound hearing, walking, language, and touch. Care for the handicapped, create certain living, work and study conditions for them, and display the intelligence and wisdom of the handicapped are important symbols of social civilization. Among disabled people, blind people account for about 30%. According to the sample survey conducted by the Ministry of Civil Affairs and the National Bureau of Statistics in April 1987, there are 7.55 million visually-disabled people in China, including about 4 million blind. In order to create learning conditions for the blind and provide Braille books, Braille printing plants were established in Beijing and Shanghai in the 1950s.

Braille is very different from the general text. It is not read by visual sense, but is a pinyin word that is touched by the touch of a finger. The pinyin text is represented by a combination of raised points on the paper, so Braille is called Braille. Braille is divided into two lines, with 3 dots per line, different numbers, and different combinations of positions. These represent different phonetic characters. This pinyin symbol is commonly used by the blind people in the world, and it is called the Blair point number. In 1952, Huang Nai, a Chinese blind person, referred to the Blair point number and used Putonghua as the basis for pronunciation. He created the "New Braille Scheme" and in the same year, the "New Braille Scheme" was promoted throughout the country.

The traditional Braille printing method is also the first printing plate. In the early 1950s, braille plates were typeset with lead type. In 1957, in the technological innovation movement, it was changed into a thin plate for printing plates. First, braille was punched on thin sheet metal to form raised braille. Then the thin metal plate is fixed on the Braille printer, and the Braille is impressed on the Braille paper so that the paper surface also forms raised Braille. After binding, it is a Braille book. From 1954 to 1978, 2300 kinds of Braille books were published, 2.3 million copies. From 1979 to 1992, more than 3,200 kinds of Braille books were published in more than 3 million books in 13 years.

Printing Factory > I. Beijing Braille Printing Factory

In July 1953, the Department of Blind and Deaf Education of the Ministry of Education established the Braille Compilation Team. Its task is to translate books that can be read by blind people into braille. In December of the same year, the Braille Compilation Group was merged into the China Blind Welfare Association Publishing Group. The "Blind Monthly" was founded in 1954. This is the first publication in China designed for the blind to read and write. In 1958, a Braille printing house was established and in 1959 it was changed to a Braille printing factory. In November 1978, with the approval of the State Publishing Bureau, the Braille Printing Factory was changed to Beijing Braille Press and was a direct unit of the State Publishing Bureau. In 1984 it was renamed China Braille Press. The company compiled, printed, and developed Braille books and became one of the largest units of Chinese Braille books for printing and publishing. In 1991, it was converted into a Chinese blind writing agency.

Braille is a character that is spelled by a lattice symbol. Therefore, the pronunciation of a word, the absence or absence of a Braille symbol, is directly related to the correct interpretation of braille. In order to guarantee the printing quality of the blind books and periodicals, the factory established a strict process and rules system in 1960. Proofreading is an important procedure for Braille printing. The factory stipulates that the paper manuscript be used once, the sheet metal edition should be used twice, and the important books should be taught four times (Figure 20-2). Printing process In order to ensure the printing quality, a production responsibility registration card has also been established. Each process of binding has its own production quota, quality inspection standard and error rate.

In order to adapt to the development of Braille printing technology, in 1979, the manual feeding of Braille printers was changed to automatic feeding. The workers also designed a cold-squeegee device to level off the thick kraft paper that is prone to warping, improving the quality of printing and binding for books and magazines.

Since 1957, braille printing has been the first production of tin plate, and the use of tin plate on the paper imprinted with Braille. This kind of production process is not only labor-intensive, but also has low production efficiency. In 1980, the plant collaborated with Beijing Xinhua Printing Co., Ltd. to develop a new process for producing foamed inks and screen printing braille. After continuous research and improvement, it has been officially applied to production. The key to this new process is the application of microsphere synthesis technology to foaming inks. The monomer of the high-molecular polymer is subjected to low-temperature polymerization to form a hollow moldable sphere having a diameter of 5 to 25 μm and filled with a low boiling point solvent, and the microsphere is dispersed in a printing ink to form a foaming ink. Using the method of screen printing, the ink is printed on the paper. After the heat treatment, where the ink is present, the low-boiling point solvent in the ink microspheres instantly vaporizes and swells to form a raised mark, that is, Braille. This new technology achievement won the third prize of scientific and technological progress from the Ministry of Culture from 1985 to 1986.

The plant also purchased an electric braille platemaking machine from the Federal Republic of Germany, added a domestic braille automatic printer and a Braille book stringer, and further improved the printing quality and production capacity of Braille books.

In 1984, China Braille Press Co., Ltd. began to develop the "Microcomputer Braille Information Processing and Platemaking System." In 1987, it passed the ministerial appraisal and obtained the Second Prize of Science and Technology Progress Award of the Press and Publication Administration in 1987.

Second, Shanghai Braille Press

The Braille Press at Shanghai Blind Children's School printed books for the blind people in China. This is also a Braille publishing and printing institution that integrates editing, printing, and publishing into a whole, and mainly prints textbooks for the blind.

The predecessor of the club was the "print room" of the Shanghai Blind Children's School. In the beginning, only some blind children's materials and extracurricular reading materials were printed. In September 1959, Shanghai Braille Press was officially established. There were only 20 workers at the time, and six simple Braille presses. In 1965, a unified system of social workers and factories was officially established. In that year, 112 kinds of printed books and newspapers were printed with 15,916 volumes.

After the Third Plenary Session of the Eleventh CPC Central Committee, China implemented a policy of reform and opening up. In September 1981, under the auspices of the Ministry of Education, Shanghai Braille Press accepted 8 braille printing equipment funded by UNICEF. The plant has also successfully tested the new process of “blind dot-blind screen printing”. In 1984, a new factory was built and personnel were added to further increase the production capacity of Braille prints in Shanghai.

Since 1986, the agency has been responsible for printing and publishing national and primary school textbooks for Braille, as well as some braille reading materials.

From the early 1950s to the early 1990s, a total of more than 6,000 kinds of Braille books and over 5 million volumes of books were printed and published in more than 40 years.