Personal Collections

Throughout her adult life, Judy has collected two things: braille slates and souvenir buildings. Both collections started by having a few interesting items then actively acquiring more.

Braille Slates

The collection of Braille and Other Tactile-Writing devices consists of a wide variety of items used for manually producing written language in a tactile form. The vast majority of the items are slates created to produce six-dot braille but the collection also contains other mechanical tactile-writing devices and slates for producing tactile codes other than braille and extensions of the braille code comprised of eight dots.

The items in the collection are divided into eight main categories:

1. Pocket Slates: Pocket slates are the most prevalent in the collection with over half of the items being in this category. These items are generally smaller in size having 14 or fewer lines and were intended to be portable.
2. Board Slates: These slates consist of a traditional slate with a front and a back and include an accompanying board to support a full sheet of paper.
3. Full-page Slates: These slates were created to write a full page of writing and include slates with 18 lines or more.
4. Frame-page Slates: These slates are similar to full-page slates with a full-sized back and only a frame around the edge for a front. The frame has holes for a two- or three-line guide that contains the cells. The guide is moved up or down on the frame when writing.
5. Notebook Slates: These slates have permanently attached notebooks or are configured to be used with a specific-sized notepad.
6. Upward-writing Slates: Instead of pits or furrows in the back of the slate, these slates have upward-pointing dots on the back and were designed to write braille from left to right with a hollow-pointed stylus to form characters facing upward.
7. Special Slates and Other Devices: This category includes a variety of slates that were created for a specific purpose such as labelling, card-writing, check-writing, etc. It also includes devices to mechanically present characters without the use of paper and other mechanical tactile-writing devices that are not slates.
8. Non-braille Slates: These slates were created to produce tactile codes other than braille or extensions of braille using more than six dots.

Within each category, the items are further divided by size of character produced (micro, standard or jumbo) and by style (standard, interline or interpoint) as appropriate.

Within the collection are several small subcollection e.g., three special cherry wood styluses made in Japan to commemorate the 100th anniversary of the adoption of the braille code. In many cases, these items are not physically together but their association is noted.

The collection is housed in two cabinets containing 36 drawers each. The cabinets are designated "Cabinet A" and "Cabinet B". The drawers are numbered 1-36 within each cabinet.

Drawer List for Braille Slate Collection

Cabinet A

The contents of the 36 drawers in Cabinet A are as follows:

1. A01: Nonbraille: New York Point
2. A02: Nonbraille: New York Point
3. A03: Nonbraille: Austrian and Japanese 8-dot
4. A04: Nonbraille: Spanish 8-dot (Abreu)
5. A05: Nonbraille: 9-and 10-dot Ballu
6. A06: Nonbraille: Moon, print and proprietary
7. A07: Upward-writing
8. A08: Upward-writing
9. A09: Special: labeling
10. A10: Special: labeling
11. A11: Special: card-writing
12. A12: Special: transcribing
13. A13: Special: money management
14. A14: Special: math
15. A15: Special: learning braille
16. A16: Frame-page
17. A17: Frame-page
18. A18: Frame-page
19. A19: Frame-page
20. A20: Frame-page
21. A21: Frame-page
22. A22: Frame-page: interline
23. A23: Frame-page: interpoint
24. A24: Frame-page: interpoint
25. A25: Frame-page: interpoint
26. A26: Frame-page: interpoint
27. A27: Full-page
28. A28: Full-page
29. A29: Full-page
30. A30: Full-page
31. A31: Full-page: interline
32. A32: Fullpage: interline
33. A33: Fullpage: interpoint
34. A34: Fullpage: interpoint
35. A35: Fullpage: interpoint
36. A36: Special: memo-writing and labeling

Cabinet B

The contents of the 36 drawers in Cabinet B are as follows:

1. B01: Pocket
2. B02: Pocket
3. B03: Pocket
4. B04: Pocket
5. B05: Pocket
6. B06: Pocket
7. B07: Pocket
8. B08: Pocket
9. B09: Pocket
10. B10: Pocket
11. B11: unused
12. B12: Pocket: interline
13. B13: Pocket: interline
14. B14: Pocket: interpoint
15. B15: Pocket: interpoint
16. B16: Pocket: interpoint
17. B17: Pocket: micro
18. B18: Pocket: micro
19. B19: Pocket: micro
20. B20: Pocket: micro interline
21. B21: Pocket: jumbo
22. B22: Notebook
23. B23: Board
24. B24: Board
25. B25: Board
26. B26: Board
27. B27: Board
28. B28: Board
29. B29: Board: interline
30. B30: Board: interline
31. B31: Board: interline
32. B32: Board: interline
33. B33: Board: interline
34. B34: Board: micro interline
35. B35: Board: micro interline
36. B36: Styluses (Drawer B36 consists entirely of styluses which are organized by country of origin when known.)

Her braille slate collection has its own website where the nearly 300 items in the collection are described and categorized into their country of origin.

In 2019, the National Braille Press posted a blog entry on Writing Braille by Hand which described the original slate and stylus used by Louis Braille, and how braille writing devices evolved over the next two hundred years.

In 2020, she created a short bonus video for the ICEB General Assembly that highlighted some of the more unique items in the collection.

Souvenir Buildings

The collection of souvenir buildings consists of about 200 models of monuments, landmarks, and statues from around the world.

Judy and her husband occasionally attend gatherings of the Souvenir Building Collectors Society where they learn more about what buildings they have never seen look like and acquire a few more for the collection.