by Neil Bauman, Ph.D.

Real-time captioning (CART) at meetings and events is a blessing for those of us who can’t hear/understand everything the speaker is saying. Sometimes we just glance up at the screen to catch the odd word we miss. Other times, we rely almost exclusively on the words magically appearing on the screen in order to get the speaker’s message.

The question is, “Where can you find the people that provide the real-time captioning services?”

Here is the link to the National Court Reporter’s Association. They list the CART providers for each state in the USA (and in Canada too). Just click on your state and see all the CART providers in your area.

Can’t find a CART provider in your area? Not a problem. Use remote CART instead. In this case, just click on the “Remote CART Providers” link.

With remote CART, the CART provider can be anywhere in the country as long as they, and you, have a computer hooked to an Internet connection. For example, your CART provider could be on a terrace in southern Florida overlooking the Caribbean Sea, while you are in a remote oil camp in northern Alaska. Whatever anyone says will appear on your screen just as though the CART reporter was there captioning in person. Even better, your CART provider could be in Alaska (Hi Sandy!) and you could be the one in the meeting on the terrace overlooking the Caribbean.

I have used both CART and remote CART many times and the quality is the same either way.