National Organisation of Spanish Blind persons (ONCE)

National Organisation of Spanish Blind persons (ONCE)

ONCE (Organización Nacional de Ciegos Españoles) is a not-for-profit organisation established in 1938 right before the end of the Spanish Civil War. This organisation brought together a number of small societies of and for the blind all over Spain becoming the only organisation of blind and visually impaired persons in the whole country. Its aim is to provide to its members with the widest range of services possible, from education to employment, from rehabilitation to reading services.

ONCE is a self-funded organisation, with the selling of tickets for its own lottery as its main means of funding. There are around 77,000 persons employees working in the entire ONCE Social Group—which comprises ONCE, Ilunion, and Fundación ONCE. Nearly 60 % of them (more than 45,000) are persons with some kind of disability.

The production and library services were established in the 1960s, and as of today, ONCE has two main production centres (in Madrid and Barcelona) and more than 30 smaller production units that produce Braille, audio, and tactile materials. All these centres and production units include a library service.

The analogue audio collection comprises nearly 46,000 titles. In 2000, ONCE started the digitisation of its collection and all of them are now in DAISY format.

ONCE has been a Full Member of the DAISY Consortium since it was established.