Over the past twenty-five years the number of blind professionals in the sciences, engineering, mathematics and computer programming has increased enormously. This is despite the fact that they must depend mostly upon sighted readers, who must usually be paid, and upon audiotape. Given their choice however, most of them would prefer Braille or electronic texts. This is because Braille is a much more suitable medium for the presentation, study and referencing of highly technical material. Mathematical equations can be presented exactly, and figures can be reproduced if they are not too complex.
Braille is also much more amenable to the close scrutiny which highly technical material requires.
Braille books contain tables of contents, chapter and section headings and indexes just as print books do. Though some methods for referencing things on tape have been developed, they are crude and imprecise. For blind persons who have hearing problems Braille may be the only possibility. For persons in less developed countries, who have less access to tape players and computers, Braille volumes, especially on technical subjects, are more precious than diamonds. Without such books, great numbers of these people are unable to develop their talents and face wasted lives.