Adaptation
Innovation
Activism

This exhibit explored a century of developments related to blind people’s reading, writing and bookmaking experiences; it also explored connections between the British, American and Canadian history of reading by touch.

This website offers information about Books Without Ink, including recorded interviews with visitors; it is not an online exhibit. Contact us to request an archived virtual tour (text or audio) of Books Without Ink. At the bottom of this page, find links to three excellent online resources exploring the history of blindness, reading and writing.

Photograph of people and glass cases containing artifacts in the Archives space. This image showcases the challenges of exhibiting fragile materials that were designed to be touched.
A close up image of words from a magazine article embossed in Moon script, this image shows a transcription of the text from the raised, inkless Moon script into cursive text handwritten in pencil.
A photograph of the contents of an exhibit case; the case features a Hall Braille Writer, loaned to the exhibit by collector and researcher Dr. Norman Ball
This image shows four women gathered around a table, in conversation about an early-twentieth-century tactile book.
This image shows curator Dr. Vanessa Warne standing beside a large relief map of Canada from 1910. The surface of the map is well-worn, suggesting frequent examination by touch.
This image shows a trio of nineteenth-century photographs of blind people reading, two of them loaned by Dr. Heather Tilley. To learn more about these readers and their depiction, visit the Touching the Book exhibit, curated by Dr. Tilley.
A photograph of the contents of an exhibit case, this image features an 1894 kleidograph, produced by the New York Institution for the Blind. This early writing machine, resembling an elongated typewriter and used to type a braille-like raised script
This photograph shows seven books from the University of Manitoba's collection of importance to blind people's history of literacy, education and activism.
This image shows curator Sabrina Mark beside the opening window of the exhibit; the window features a replica of a nineteenth-century dress made by Sabrina Mark.

Online Exhibits on Books for Blind Readers

Dr. Heather Tilley, author of Blindness and Writing: From Wordsworth to Gissing (Cambridge UP, 2018), is the curator of Touching the Book: Embossed Literature for Blind People in the Nineteenth Century. Visit Dr. Tilley’s online exhibit, based on her 2013 exhibit (Birkbeck, University of London), to learn more about publications, paintings and tools of importance to the history of blindness.

The Perkins School for the Blind houses one of North America’s most important collections of artifacts related to the education of blind people. To explore this collection, visit the Perkins Virtual Museum.

Visitors to the Museum of the American Printing House for the Blind in Louisville, Kentucky, can tour a series of permanent exhibits on blind people’s history, including histories of schooling, reading, writing and publishing. The museum’s website features a virtual tour and many other resources.