Voice of the Diabetic

Voice of the Diabetic

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AMERICA'S JOBLINE® FOR THE BLIND

Blind job-seekers have traditionally been at a disadvantage,

for few job vacancies have been widely posted in accessible format. How were

you supposed to find out about the position in a timely manner? If you didn't

have an adaptive computer, or a sighted reader with you, you didn't find out.

Now, the National Federation of the Blind, the largest organization

of blind people in the United States, has pioneered in developing the technology

to access and search computer database files with a standard touch-tone telephone.

To access AMERICA'S JOBLINE®,

simply telephone: 1-800-414-5748.

For the user (normally someone who is looking for employment), AMERICA'S JOBLINE®

is instantly available on the telephone, 24 hours a day, providing all job announcements

in a high-quality synthesized speech format, instead of printed text. The system

provides all callers the ability to search AMERICA'S JOB BANK (administered

by the U.S. Department of Labor), allows job seekers to create and store in

the system personal job-search profiles for use in quickly locating vacancies

for which they are qualified; and allows users the option to retrieve, if they

wish, only the new and relevant job listings posted since the last call, or

retrieve previously saved announcements.

With AMERICA'S JOBLINE®, the user enters a search profile

into the system, using a standard touch-tone telephone keypad, in response to

menu choices. As with the job announcement information, the menu choices are

presented in a voice-output format. To try JOBLINE® yourself, call: 1-800-414-5748.

America's Jobline® was created to help:

* Persons who do not have or cannot use standard computers,

who now have a convenient and easy-to-use alternative means to obtain job information;

and

* Persons who cannot see or cannot read standard video display

terminals, who now have audio access, without expensive adaptive equipment of

their own.

What are these jobs? Where do they come from? AMERICA'S JOB

BANK, the database JOBLINE® searches, is the set of jobs listed in the U.S.

Job Service, the world's largest job database. At any given time, there may

be a million open positions in there, catalogued by region and job type. If

you are an employer, and you post a job vacancy with U.S. Job Service in your

state, blind users of AMERICA'S JOBLINE® can now access that job as soon

as it is entered. (To learn more about AMERICA'S JOB BANK, go to website: www.ajb.org

or contact your local Job Service office.)

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