Illinois Radio Reading Service Building

The Illinois Radio Reading Service Building is a repurposed house in south campus, near the Slavic Review Building. It is the continuation of a service project begun April 15, 1978 in the basement of Gregory Hall, which offered "daily reading of newspapers, including advertising material and even the features and comics; the reading of magazines, and of books not already available in recorded versions; community and consumer information programs; and other matter not readily available to sight-handicapped persons". [1]

A collaboration between the University's WILL, and the local Junior League, the program used one of the FM sub bands usually used for carrying commercial-free music for stores. Special receivers were necessary to receive the broadcasts and the Andersons Foundation spent $3,500 to purchase 52 receivers to launch the program, which were lent to eligible individuals for a fee of just $2 a month. The program broadcast weekly from 6:30PM until midnight and 12 hours non-stop on weekends. [2]

At the time of its inception, the program joined more than 70 others in the United States, all spawned from a Minnesota project launched in 1968, which had grown to more than 4,000 receivers by 1978. The Champaign-Urbana program was estimated to be of use to more than 6,000 area residents. [3]

Two years prior to the Reading Service's inception, in 1976, the University had first added Braille elevator signs to all of its campus buildings. [4]