"As Your World Changes" Blog Reference.

A Vision Loser's Guide to Services in Prescott Arizona

Social Services

• Sun sounds.org with an April 2008 reading of the Arizona selected book by Nancy Turner
• New Horizons Independence Center disability-related referrals and services, staffed by disabled individuals. Phone 928.772.1266 E-Mail: nhilc@cableone
• Directory of AZ services for blind and visually impaired persons in HTML, also available in pdf
• Northern Arizona Vision and Hearing Loss Center (Inactive) formerly known as "Blind Center", seems no longer holding events.
• Second Sight rehab, phone 928-771-046. Offers 8 session overview for living with confidence supported by 928-445-2480, 505 W. Gurley Street.
• Prescott Transit Authority, (homebound elderly and/or disabled adults) 9284455470 8004457978
• MORRIS, GEORGEANNE—Rehabilitation, Teacher / Low Vision Therapist 9287755857 FAX: 9287758502 Email: georgeannemorris@yahoo.com Note: Arizona Social Services may be difficult to access -- try the state headquarters for options.
• Yavapai County Election Board provides touch screen and audio voting assistance. Read about Audio Voting Experience in Yavapai County 2008 elections

Information Resources

• Yavapai County Library Network serves Prescott branches and surrounding towns, excellent new facility with many CD audio books, drop-off points, online catalog, and meeting rooms. Also has a lightly used RSS feed. Information desk is 928-777-1520. JAWS screen reader and other assitive technology available in some branches. Prescott events page has an RSS feed.
• City of Prescott web site has a useful RSS feeds on events and council activities.
• Prescott Daily Courier Newspaper with local news RSS delivers headlines but not articles using some (my) RSS clients. Local event news is available but predominantly for obituaries and real estate.
• Prescott enews alternative news source
• Google Alerts for common searches such as "Arizona low vision" or "Arizona visually impaired" or "Prescott Arizona" but the latter finds mostly sports
• A blog on "walking prescott" pointing to changes in streets, scenery, and ambience.

National Organizations

• < a href="http://lib.az.us/Braille">National Library Service for Blind, Arizona library system with tape systems available through Yavapai Library Network and human narrated digital books for download
• Bookshare.org, digital library for print disabled , 40,000+ books in formats for reading by synthetic voices, see blog post "What's a print-disabled reader to do?"
• American Federation for Blind has a senior services overview
• American Council for the BlindActive, state convention and exhibits at Sky Harbor May 2-3 2008, great podcast series at ACB Radio.org
• National Federation of the Blind Arizona Note: Tri-city date is incorrect area code, not currently active. NFB operates News Line of national newspapers, including Phoenix and Tucson, also downloadable through Bookshare

Wish List

• More RSS feeds for Prescott area and for Arizona vision-related topics
• Mobile optimized web pages that are easier to read, e.g. m.gmail.com or the accessible page from amazon
• Google and other tips for handling attachments, see below, as DOC and PDF often require conversion to TXT.

  Handy Google gmail tip for attachments: use Gmail mobile web page to get more direct access to the inbox with options below the table. Click the attachments link then Save Link As a DOC or PDF attachment and Google will convert it to HTML for easier reading, just as in the "View as HTML" link in search results. Very handy to avoid launching a heavy-duty application to read only text from a document.