BARD Accessories and Purchased Players
Blank Cartridges
Blank digital cartridges (like those you receive from Talking Books) are available for purchase from a couple online vendors. NOTE: in order to connect a blank cartridge to your computer, you will need contact Talking Books to request a special USB cartridge cable.
- American Printing House for the Blind (www.aph.org) 800-223-1839. Cartridge available in 4 GB.
- Perkins School (www.perkins.org) 617-973-7308. Cartridge available in 4 GB.
USB Flash Drives
Flash drives can be purchased at any consumer electronics retail store (i.e. Best Buy, Radio Shack, Fred Meyer, Office Depot, Staples, etc).
- We recommend a USB flash drive that at least 2 GB and that does not come with any security or automatic-organization software.
- The larger the USB flash drive, the more books you can load onto it. Usually, 1 GB holds about 4-6 books, depending on their size.
Purchased Players
Several third party players have been authorized by the National Library Service to play BARD books. A purchased player must be registered through BARD before it can play BARD books.
- Apex BrailleNote/VoiceNote
- APH Book Port DT
- APH Braille Plus Mobile Manager
- APH Book Port Plus
- HIMS Blaze ET
- HIMS BookSense (discontinued)
- HIMS BookSense DS (discontinued)
- HIMS BookSense XT (discontinued)
- HIMS Sense Notetaker
- Humanware Victor Reader Stratus
- Humanware Victor Reader Stream
- LevelStar Braille Plus (discontinued)
- LevelStar Icon (discontinued)
- PLEXTALK Pocket PTP1
- PLEXTALK PTN2
Disclaimer: the list of authorized purchased players changes periodically, and some of these products may be discontinued by the manufacturer. The most current list of authorized purchased players can be found on BARD, and we apologize if any of these links do not connect to the intended device webpage.
One other thing to note, for all users of third party players, please keep a backup copy of the key the vendor sends on to you. If your player does need to be reset to factory defaults this will wipe out the key from the player’s memory and require a reinstallation of the key, in order for you materials to be read again on that player. This is much easier than having to go through the process of getting a new key made for you by the vendor.
Thanks,
Craig