M. Suzanne Brown

This book is a summary of a survey done in Fall 2010 on services to users with disabilities in ARL libraries. There are 3 sections of interest:

First, an executive summary at the beginning concludes things are better than they were in ARL libraries, but we are challenged to provide more services with inadequate support from campus disability offices.

Second, the results of the survey itself are presented.

Third, there are reprints of example documents from participating libraries, including what services they provide, how they recruit and train staff, how they assess their own services. These are mostly printouts of web pages and have varying degrees of readability but fortunately the URL is reprinted in a legible font at the top of each page.

Overall I found it reassuring to see where libraries are in terms of support for users with disabilities. There is a general baseline of typical services including stack retrieval, assistance with photocopying, proxy borrowing, a liaison staff member, screen reading and similar software, sometimes housed in a special room or center, and some attention to library web site usability.

Some of the unique services were: distribution of Kurzweil software on USB devices (University of Guelph), "try before you buy" gadget borrowing (also University of Guelph), campus book delivery (University of Waterloo), and a photocopying service (Penn state).

I noticed there was very little discussion of the meaning of web accessibility, which would have been helpful. For example, if someone posts uncaptioned video on your site, or it uses javascript, does that mean you are not section 508 compliant? Nevertheless some of the tools and links for web accessibility were useful.… (more)