Kristin,
The things that you found are, unfortunately, not unusual. In answer to your question, I think that people with visual impairments should be able to expect service from people trained to help them, at least in basic ways. By this I don't mean one "special" person, I mean the entire staff. Staff training is a really critical issue here. Many people are still uncomfortable with people with disabilities.
They should be able to expect computer technology that includes flatbed scanners, optical character recognition (OCR) software and voice output. They should be able to download material to floppies or other storage media (CD-RW and SuperDisk come to mind) for use at home or elsewhere. They should be able to get significant magnification of words and images on screen.
They should have access to e-text and be alerted to the wealth of e-text on the Internet already. They should have access to books on tape (here I mean commercial ones, though four track, variable speed would be nice too. They should be able to get information on the services of the Libraries for the Blind and Visually Handicapped/Talking Book Libraries in their state, and on the textbook services of Recording for the Blind and Dyslexic (based in Princeton, by the way).
After thinking about it a lot, I believe that a narrow focus on one disability is not the way to go in public libraries. If we really mean that we want our libraries accessible to all people, we need to start looking at the application of something called "universal design." Go to http://www.cast.org to find out more about this approach. It basically involves designing buildings, computer workstations (hardware and software), and other services to be useable by as many people as possible.
As far as technology is concerned, I believe we should advocate for computer workstations that just, as a matter of course, have accommodations for people with a variety of disabilities. We'll probably never get one workstation to do everything needed for all people, of course. But if all workstations had at least basic accommodations that work across a number of groups, it would be a simple matter to outfit one or two with "unusual" assistive hardware or software.
I also wanted to note that vendors are moving away from dedicated machines. More and more, including Kurzweil, are now into producing software that can be used on common, off-the-shelf platforms. This should help our efforts to help a wider variety of people who are still unserved by their local libraries.
I always get back to training: library education and library inservice training are both very negligent in this area. We need to get away from the notion that people with disabilities should be shunted away to a special service or a special person all of the time. Sometimes special knowledge is needed, to be sure. But we stopped locking our mentally retarded and physically handicapped people up in the attic or the basement a while back. I think we should stop locking their library service away too.
Good luck on your quest. Your heart is in the right place and we need more people interested in service to people with disabilities.
Audrey
Audrey J. Gorman
Director
Roads To Learning, The Public Libraries' Learning Disabilities Initiative
The American Library Association
50 East Huron Street
Chicago, IL 60611
E-mail: [log in to unmask]
Voice: 1-800-545-2433 ext. 4027
Fax: 1-312-944-8085
>>> Kristin Visokay <[log in to unmask]> 11/09 10:05 AM >>>
Hello!
My name is Kristin and I am a graduate student at Rutgers University. I
am taking an outreach services class and have chosen to gather
information about people who are blind or visually impaired who use
public libraries. The ultimate goal of the class is to come up with a
grant proposal to implement in a public library system for users. I live
in New Jersey and have decided to focus on the Mercer County Public
Library System. I went to visit with the women who puts in the computer
systems for people with visual impairments. However, this did not prove
very fruitful as they have one machine per each library, they never
publicly announced that they had acquired these machines or did a needs
assessment survey before buying the machine which is the V View system.
They don't even know if people have used the machine!! They have a large
print collection and she is hopefully going to provide me with
circulation statistics on the collection. They also do not know how many
of the patrons may even have a visual impairment.
My question is this : What types of resources/services do people feel a
public library should offer to a person with a visual impairment? These
suggestions can be computer based, print based, anything. I feel that
people in the community are being underserved here and would like to make
a change.
Kristin Visokay
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