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| Visitors look around the exhibition hall at Song Am Library in Nam-gu, Incheon, on Nov. 29. /Yonhap |
By Bahk Eun-ji
Incheon opened its first Braille library in Nam-gu last month.
More than 13,000 blind people live in Incheon, accounting for 10 percent of registered disabled people in the city.
The district government spent 2.1 billion won ($1.93 million) establishing the three-story, 766-square-meter building. It has 3,673 books in Braille and 18,000 other books.
The library also transcribes books into Braille using a Braillo 400SR machine. Once the books are in Braille, they are also made into audio books.
Song Am Library is named after Park Du-sung, who invented the Korean Braille alphabet in 1926. Song Am is Park's pen name.
Park worked as a teacher at Seoul National Schools for the blind during the Japanese occupation of Korea.
The library also has a commemoration hall for Park, which displays 160 of his items, including a Braille press machine and books.
Song Am Library is open Monday to Friday, 9 a.m. to 6 p.m.
