A Study of Library Usage and Satisfaction by Visually Impaired Students: Special Reference to the Audio Book Project

Acquiring knowledge can be identified as one of the basic needs of individuals. Visually impaired individuals encounter significant obstacles in both academic and daily life contexts. These challenges include difficulties in accessing print materials and navigating physical spaces. While there are many ways for normal people to explore knowledge, the opportunities available to visually impaired people are limited. Accordingly, the main objective of this was to study the library use and reading satisfaction of visually impaired students, especially the students' satisfaction with audio books and their successes and challenges. Purposive sampling method was used to select 15 visually impaired students for the research. Data was collected using a structured questionnaire. Results revealed that the students are highly satisfied (100%) with the audio book project. However, there are some issues such as insufficient availability of existing audio books in English and Tamil medium and insufficient technical equipment for them to access the books easily were highlighted. More book readers need to be trained to produce required number of audio books in Sinhala, English and Tamil mediums.