KEY POINTS:
Mary Schnackenberg debated with herself if she should accept her appointment as a Companion of the New Zealand Order of Merit.
The Aucklander, who has been blind since birth, received the honour in recognition of her services to people with visual impairments.
"I was really extremely surprised," she said. "I was in doubt about whether or not to accept it and I realised I needed to accept it for all the huge number of people I had worked with over the years."
The gesture was extremely generous but an enormous team had worked with the visually impaired over the years.
Ms Schnackenberg said her motivation was improving access to information.
The trained librarian worked for 30 years with the Royal New Zealand Foundation of the Blind, running the library and production and publishing systems.
She said blindness was only a disability if the blind person allowed it to be, but still required a lot of work. "Nothing is simple. There has been some amazing things that have happened in the last 20 years that have benefited the public."
An example was her screen reader that allowed her to go to the government website and "read" about the honours system - using sound and Braille.
Ms Schnackenberg believes her greatest achievement has been her contribution to improving blind people's access to information.
She is holidaying in Fiji with older brother Tom, the yachtsman, who is an Officer of the Order of the British Empire (OBE) for services to yachting.
- NZPA
