Louis and the AMP Database: Supporting Students and the Field

The Louis Database

The concept of sharing information between braille-producing agencies dates back to the 1950s, when APH used a paper-based system – often involving postcards! – to gather and share information about braille materials available beyond APH. The service has evolved dramatically since its beginning, but the goals of avoiding duplication of effort, maximizing the impact of limited resources, and getting accessible formats into the hands of students as quickly as possible, remain the same for the Louis Database today.

The Louis Database of Accessible Materials was established in 1998 and is recognized in the 2002 Instructional Materials Accessibility Act: Making Instructional Materials Available to All Students. The database features listings of K-12 educational materials in accessible formats available from over fifty agencies across the U.S., including APH, Bookshare, and Learning Ally. In all, Louis contains information about more than 1.5 million items in formats ranging from braille and large print to digital text and audio. It is your one search for locating K-12 instructional materials in accessible formats.

Louis is also the only place to find and purchase braille and large print textbooks from APH, in both hard copy and digital formats. Integrated with APH’s ecommerce system, searchers can put an APH textbook into the shopping cart in Louis and seamlessly purchase it in the ecommerce site. For materials available from other providers, Louis contains the complete contact information so that searchers can reach out directly to the producing agency for more information.

As a free service, Louis supports the field by providing a way for agencies of any size to share information about the materials that they have available. It also helps agencies – including APH – to avoid duplication of effort by listing braille materials that are already in production by a contributing agency but not yet completed. APH encourages agencies to participate in Louis and let us know about the materials that they have available and, in the case of braille, to send information about new titles they have in the transcription pipeline.

Accessible Media Producers Database (AMP)

APH further supports the field by offering a free searchable database of Accessible Media Producers (AMPs). Similarly to Louis, this service allows AMPs to let others know about the production services they offer, as well as their specific skills and certifications.

The individuals and organizations who list their services in AMP produce a wide range of accessible formats – and in a number of languages. If searchers are not able to find the accessible format they need in Louis, and they want to locate a provider to produce the format, AMP can help them find someone whose expertise and qualifications match the need. AMP can be particularly helpful when needing a language or format that is less common, such as music braille.

Any Questions?

If you are a producer of materials and would like more information about listing your materials in Louis – or listing your services in AMP – we’d love to hear from you. Or, if you have questions or need help in searching Louis or AMP, we are here to help! Just reach out to us at resource@aph.org or at 800-223-1879, ext. 705.

Louis Website Series

This blog is part of a larger series that describes the various databases available to users through the Louis Website. Check out the blog to learn more about the additional databases!