KPU’s new braille printer among the 1st open to the public in Western Canada

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Kwantlen Polytechnic University’s new braille printer has become one of the first in Western Canada to be accessible to the public for self-serve use.

Installing the on-campus printer was a recommendation in the university’s Accessibility Plan. The machine, which embosses into paper, is located in the collaborative zone on the first floor of the KPU Surrey library. It is equipped with a screen reader, braille keyboard, screen magnifier, headphones, and a software that translates text into braille for printing. 

First-year sociology student Michael McClellan, who has a visual impairment disability and came to the university for the Including All Citizens Pathway (IACP), is one of the students making use of the braille printer. 

McClellan piloted the braille printer last fall with sociology instructor Fiona Whittington-Walsh, who is also KPU’s lead advisor on disability, accessibility, and inclusion. 

He says the printer has made a huge difference in how he is able to study and engage in class. 

“If I didn’t have that, I would not be not doing … as good as I am doing because it would have been more difficult. Having that now actually makes me feel like I’m included, being able to do my assignment however I wish,” McClellan says.

“If I wanted to, I could deliver my assignment in braille to [Whittington-Walsh]. Yes, I would have to read it to her, but at the same time, it would be how I could do it — and that is huge in itself.” 

Whittington-Walsh says learning how to effectively print in braille has come with a learning curve, but she is putting the experience towards a resource guide, which should be available this spring, for fellow instructors. 

Along the way, she has had to learn a little bit of braille herself in order to ensure her students get the same materials all other students do. 

“I felt it was really important that the students receive all of the resources that everybody else receives,” Whittington-Walsh says. “The first day of class, I handed out the syllabus to everybody, and they got a braille version of the syllabus. And also, weekly with the PowerPoint, it was really important for me that the students have access to exactly the same resources.”

McClellan hopes that more universities and colleges across Canada will follow suit in KPU’s accessibility services’ footsteps. 

“[KPU is] ahead of the game with any other university or college across Canada. I want to see more of them do this, where braille printers are in their universities … and you’re not having to send it out to get printed [or] sit there just listening to the instructor without [being] able to follow along.”

Kelsey Chaban, interim Indigenous studies and equity, diversity, and inclusion liaison librarian at KPU, says the service is for students to print anything within fair dealing like notes, grocery lists, and poetry, but cannot be used to print books — the same printing rules which apply to other printers. Textbooks and other materials in braille can be accessed through KPU’s accessibility services. 

“Really, [it’s] about equity in printing,” she says. “People who use braille did not have an opportunity to come up and just print their notes, so this is trying to fulfill that need.”

Regular printing costs $0.25 per page — the same price as single-sided colour printing at the library. Any materials printed in braille by KPU instructors for student course work, like PowerPoint slides, are covered by KPU. 

Chaban says the machine itself costs approximately $8,000 and is best used for printing Microsoft Word or text documents without images or graphs. She adds there are no concrete plans to expand the service into other campuses right now, but it is something they hope could happen in the future. 

Library staff are available for tutorials and demonstrations by appointment by emailing libinclusion@kpu.ca or dropping-in on Tuesdays from 10:00 am to 3:00 pm. Anyone using the equipment for the first time is encouraged to book an appointment.