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Funding and governance of library and information services for visually impaired people: international case studies

Part2:Country studies

Sweden

Models and responsibilities

The Swedish model of talking books service consists of three levels:

1. The State via TPB is responsible for production, information and bibliographic services.
2. County libraries are responsible for collection building, information, and training and deposit collections within their county.
3. Local public libraries are responsible for lending to print impaired clients.

A library does not necessarily have to have their own collections of talking books. Today all county libraries can download DAISY talking books from TPB's server via TPB's OPAC. In order to do that the library has to get a permission from the Government. So far all county libraries has this right and a number of public and academic libraries. At this date 260 permissions have been issued.