19 September 2007
Yad Vashem has recently acquired visual aids for the Reading Room. The Reading Room is visited daily by scores of researchers, students, and the public who are seeking information about the Holocaust or their family’s fate. Working with the staff of the Resources and Information Department, visitors explore material from Yad Vashem Archives and Library. The new visual aids, including a machine with a special optic lens, enlarges print to allow people with impaired vision to more easily read the archival material and facilitate their search for information. Similarly, new software installed in the Reading Room and the Hall of Names enlarges text on the computer screen.
Special thanks go to Aleh, an organization based at the Hebrew University, Mt. Scopus dedicated to assisting blind and dyslexic students, who graciously loaned the equipment to Yad Vashem, as well as to Mr. Avraham Ivanir who was instrumental in facilitating the arrival of the Visual Aids at Yad Vashem.
Yad Vashem’s Archives currently contain some 70 million pages of documentation, and the Library holds over 110,000 titles in 52 languages.
