Dear Accessibility Advocates:

I am a proud member of the Exhibitors round tables of both the American [ALA]
and Texas Library Associations [TLA] and have been promoting accessibility
among vendors during a number of past conferences and at conference meetings of
the vendors. Since the Texas Library Association is such a huge conference
(come to TLA in San Antonio, March 28-31, and you will we what I mean - see
http://www.txla.org/conference/conf.html and the Exhibitor Index at
http://www.txla.org/conference/exhibits/exhindex.asp), many vendors exhibit at
both ALA and TLA conferences.

I always have found vendors/exhibitors to be most interested in meeting the
needs of their customers and also in expanding their customer base.
Accessibility for all means MORE CUSTOMERS=MORE $$$$.

I believe that the key to success is explaining clearly and positively how
accessibility is a UNIVERSAL need for everyone. EVERYONE.

If in our presentation we lead people/our audience/vendors to believe or
reinforce their preexisting beliefs that:

- Accessibility refers only to serving the needs for those "dis--" persons who
[by dictionary definition] are nonfunctioning burdens to society, who because
they are nonfunctioning, really don't need access to anything anyway, because
the "dis-" don't access anything.

We deserve what we get.  A negative presentation breeds negative attitudes.

On the other hand:

- If we present accessibility POSITIVELY AND ACCURATELY as a UNIVERSAL need for
all human beings and living things and a great way for a company to earn more
$$$$$$ and to corner a great market of loyal users;

- If we promote the idea to vendors that the creating accesible products and
advertising their products on a fully accessible website is a great marketing
tool and coup for the first companies who do it [ For instance, having a
text-based version of a company website with a "text version" link on the
company homepage is a great start for a company to indicate that it cares.]

- If we point out facts of life that EVERYONE needs to be able to do things
differently, EVERYONE joins the crowd sooner or later, even the vendors
themselves!

The vendors are SUPER interested and eager to do whatever they can to make
their products fully accessible and to accept any literature you have on
accessibility and pass them on to product managers.

Positive Wins.  Positive Sells. Every Time.

----------------------

With deep thanks to ALA's Audrey Gorman and ALA Conference Services, ALA
Annual's Accessibility Pavilion in San Francisco (June 2001) will showcase
accessibility and accessible products as "the way to go." As I did at January's
ATIA, at next week's CSUN, I will be networking with AT vendors to encourage
them to come to ALA.


--------------------

BTW, if you will be attending the Texas Library Association Conference in San
Antonio, March 28-31, 2001, "y'all" are most cordially invited to participate
in the conference program:

"Accessible, Assistive Technology for Everyone"
Thursday, March 29, 2-3:50 pm
San Antonio Convention Center-Room 205

The panel of presenters features two vendors of accessible and accessibility
products:

* Mitake Holloman Burts, Product Manager for the ACCESSIBLE Keystone Library
Automation System, Raleigh, NC  http://www.klas.com/

* Richard Lampert, Owner, Lampert & Company/Magnification Station, Austin, TX
http://www.magstation.com/

Free Distribution of many vendor materials from next week's CSUN Conference.
Thanks to TLA's Automation and Technology Round Table, a raffle will be held at
the end of the program to give away 10 copies of Michael Paciello's latest book
"Web Accessibility for People with Disabilities."

For more on the program and a list of other featured speakers, please see:

Program URL: http://twu.edu/~s_perlow/tla2001.html

---------------------------


Ellen Perlow
Chair, ALA ASCLA Century Scholarship Committee
The ALA ASCLA Century Scholarship Diversity Initiative
"Celebrating a New Century that Celebrates Diversity"
http://www.ala.org/ascla/centuryscholarship.html
Annual Submission Deadline: March 1
ALA 2001 Scholarship Application page:
http://www.ala.org/work/awards/scholars.html
Have YOU recruited/applied to be a Century Scholarship applicant today?
----------------------------------------------------
Manager of Information Services
School of Library and Information Studies
Texas Woman's University
P.O. Box 425438
Denton, TX 76204-5438
Tel.: 940-898-2622  Fax: 940-898-2611
Web: http://twu.edu/~s_perlow/
E-Mail: [log in to unmask]