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What is being called the largest Christian library for the visually impaired dedicates its new home Sunday at Holy Cross Lutheran Church in Jacksonville after a move from St. Louis.

The Lutheran Library for the Blind with 6,500 braille, large-type and audiocassette books loaned free through the mail will be dedicated at 4 p.m. at the church at 6620 Arlington Expressway.

The reason for the move was twofold, said Julia Neimes, a Lutheran Braille Workers board member and the Jacksonville resident overseeing the library’s volunteer operations. The library’s lease was up in St. Louis, and Holy Cross already had one of the Lutheran Church’s 25 U.S. printing centers.

“I knew there was a need and they were probably going to shelve it for years, and people would be without access to those books and services,” Neimes said. “We had an empty building down here, and I said, ‘How about Florida?’ ”


The Lutheran Blind Mission Society helps the blind and visually impaired with the production of religious reading material. Its 1,000 volunteers produce the Lutheran Service Book and other braille and large-print materials. It also operates the library and oversees 65 outreach centers that offer Bible study, employment training classes and vision support groups.

On July 1 it merged with Lutheran Braille Workers in California, whose 5,000 volunteers produce the Bible and other Christian materials in braille and large print in 30 languages across the world.

The printing services remain in California. But moving the library’s books, tapes and computer ordering system took two moving vans, according to the Rev. Phillip Pledger, Lutheran Braille Workers’ executive director. He credits Neimes, who had already started the braille printing center at Holy Cross, for suggesting the library move there.

“She had some experience and recruited about 100 volunteers,” Pledger said. “Holy Cross had a vacancy, so there was a place, a person excited about leading it and about 100 volunteers excited about helping, so it coalesced.”

The new library will be open in mid-September to those who want to come in to borrow a book. But most loans are done online at Lutheran Blind Mission, a Christian outreach with the visually impaired.


Lutheran Library for the Blind moves to Jacksonville | jacksonville.com

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