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27Feb05 . . . .
what is going on with federal depository libraries
Government Information in the Digital Age: The Once and Future Federal Depository Library Program. The Federal Depository Library Program run by the GPO is changing, dramatically. How will this affect you, and your patrons' access to goverment information? James Jacobs and Shinjoung Yeo have made a preprint of an article they've written available.
We believe the GPO’s proposed model will do more to endanger long-term access to government information than ensure it. Libraries have been slow to offer alternatives. Many librarians have even supported GPO's proposals -- perhaps because the long-term implications are not clear.
Though this article in D-Lib is a bit of a "complex text" it's worth reading if you've been asking yourself "How can I try to ensure fair use rights in the brave new world of DRM-ed content?" No matter what happens with DRM over the next few months, librarians that manage DRM-ed content are going to have to get a whole lot more tech-savvy, and quick.
The case of library licenses can be implemented by providing libraries with Library customer templates to request Library customer licenses valid for a fixed period of time. Prior to giving out a new copy of a Library customer template, the library can check the PCM to see whether the number of customer licenses in use is fewer than the maximum allowed.
23Feb05 . . . .
blog policy questions
Now that organizations are starting to get their own blogs, people are starting to have some of the blog-policy questions, which is something you get when trends becomes more institutionalized. Karen has been working on blog ethics for a while and her recent post discusses CLA's new blog and their stated intent to make the blog feeds a CLA member benefit. She discusses the whole idea of member benefits which confront the more wired idea of getting and giving content for free. ALA has back issues of American Libraries as a member benefit. At my library we used to have nine public access computers but only one for non-patrons that could access email. The three other "email computers" were a patron benefit. Not only was this system not particularly useful to our patrons -- many people who want Internet access at the library specifically want to check their email -- but it made us, as librarians explaining the system, look like we didn't "get technology" We had to make the computers do something that they wouldn't do normally in order to put a barrier between what we wanted to give away for free, and what we wanted people to pay for. Similarly in the CLA case, blogs made with any current CMS have an RSS feed. Whether or not you link to it, it still exists, right?
CLA may have produced a great journal in the past; now it can produce a great blog. It will not be a great blog if only its members can access it, because what makes blogs great are their impact on society. CLA, the cluetrain has pulled into the station. Please, I beg of you: get on board.
22Feb05 . . . .
learn about the broadcast flag
I have been really interested in the Broadcast Flag and its ongoing legal battles as more DRM-ish pro-business anti-consumer legislation that could negatively impact libraries. This was even before I learned that the ALA was challenging it in court. Learn more about the Broadcast Flag from Cory Doctorow.
21Feb05 . . . .
snapshot of Vermont's broadband saturation
A sidenote to the podcast talk: if you want to participate in podcasting, you'll probably also want to have broadband since Greg's 11 minute podcast is about 5MB. This got me thinking about the digital divide again, and how it relates to new technologies. One of the things I love about RSS is that it actually saves me bandwidth because I'm not loading a lot of formatting and ancillary web page fluff that I'm not interested in [for the truly lovely sites, I'll still go look at the pages, natch]. The content to bandwidth ratio is high. I only got cable modem recently in Vermont and my house up North still has dial-up. There is one ISP there with a local number and they don't even have have a web page. It's a different world. My options there are dial-up, satellite broadband, or nothing.
As of mid-2003 17% of Vermont households had broadband. I'm sure that number has shot up, but how high? I've been reading through the Vermont Telecommunications Plan from the end of 2004, and it's fascinating stuff. 66% of Vermonters surveyed in late 2003, early 2004 had Internet access at home. Of them, roughly 25% use cable or DSL with the rest on dial-up, WebTV or other workarounds.. So... a little quick math... and we've got about 15% of Vermonters who have cable Internet or DSL. I'm sure this number has also increased, but how high? That's about 100,000 people more or less. Want to know why it isn't higher? Check out these two graphs I pulled from the report, paraphrased "Why I haven't used the Internet recently" and "Why we're not getting faster Internet at work" What does a library, or a librarian do about this?
14Feb05 . . . .
audiobooks for visually imparied people, free and online
If you are a resident of Colorado, Delaware, Illinois, New Hampshire, or Oregon, and happen to be blind or visually challenged [or if you know someone who is] you can access audiobooks online in Windows Media format for free from Unabridged.
25Jan05 . . . .
why mandating filters doesn't work
Welcome to the club of the misfiltered, Oregon Libraries! According to Sethf, the Oregon Libraries Network web site is classified by N2H2 as "pornography" and hence is unviewable by 40% of schools in the US, according to their statistics. You can check to see if your own site is filtered. More over at LISNews. Here are the result from a few of my pages:
23Jan05 . . . .
cataloging, berman, folks folksonomies
Two good posts in the archives over at Catalogablog. David talks about folksonomies, the word we love to worry about, in the same week as he discusses the fate of the Hennepin County Library Authority files, which are sadly inaccessible. When I was taking the bus down to ALA, Greg and I were in the bus terminal discussing Dewey and another guy leaned over and said "are you talking about Melvil Dewey? Are you guys librarians?" When I said that I was, one of the first things he said was "Do you know Sandy Berman?" I was happy to say that I do.
One of the things we did at Council was debate national ID card types of situations in a possible US future where one card would serve as driver's license, library card, citizenship card, etc. ALA strongly urged the powers that be to be concerned with the privacy implications of such a movement and, at some level, was just against the national identity card idea. In the UK they are grappling with a different sort of privacy issue: fingerprinting children to use their prints as unique identifiers for library cards in schools. Is this another case of solving a problem that doesn't really exist with fancy gadgetry?
"It's far more logical to say the number of times a child will lose its library card is relatively small. You ask the child their name and you trust them. What are they saying - that children are going to be masquerading as other students so that they can illicitly obtain books?" [thanks eoin]
Wacky and weird subject headings, a collaborative wiki-project from the folks at The Marginal Librarian. [thanks beth]
12Jan05 . . . .
RSS, darnitall!
I think this is Jenny quoting Steven quoting Fiona, but in any case, Dynix is going to have RSS feed options from their catalog and Seattle Public Library is going to be using their new OPAC real soon now. As a small-library web developer, I just drool thinking of how easy it would be to pull OPAC content in to an otherwise static "new titles" page, as Jenny says.
2Jan05 . . . .
Q&A with google library
Librarians and others ask some questions of the Google Library Project. Compiled by Searcher Magazine's crack editor Barbara Quint. [buzz]
27Dec04 . . . .
An Introduction to Open Access for Librarians
Can't believe I haven't linked to this before, but it is very worth reading: Removing the Barriers to Research: An Introduction to Open Access for Librarians by Peter Suber. If you like this, you might also enjoy something I'm sure I haven't posted "How and Why To Free All Refereed Research From Access- and Impact-Barriers Online, Now"
"The serials pricing crisis is now in its fourth decade. We're long past the point of damage control and into the era of damage. Prices limit access, and intolerable prices limit access intolerably. Every research institution in the world suffers from intolerable access limitations, no matter how wealthy. Not only must libraries cope by cancelling subscriptions and cutting into their book budgets, but researchers must do without access to some of the journals critical to their research."
Add this to one of the hidden costs of filtering: additional staff to keep tabs on patrons. Phoenix AZ public library system has a "no pornography" policy and Internet users in the library have no option to have unfiltered access. Note the odd contruction in this sentence "The computers in Phoenix's libraries now filter all Web sites that are classified as pornographic" Do you really think all porn web sites are filtered? Filtered by whom or what? And how? What about textual pornography? What does "objectionable for minors" mean anyhow? While I'm always happy to see more jobs available for librarians, it's sad that they need to come this way. As a side note, we found that porn viewing and printing went down when we switched to a self-serve print server that patrons interact with. Formerly, circulation staff had had to hand printed pages directly to patrons and take their money and there was some speculation that this interaction with staff was part of the reason for the problematic porn printing.
Then again, I think maybe I just need to work for this new project. All digitized content of some major libraries -- including the Library of Congress -- available freely to online users. [riba rambles]
29Nov04 . . . .
copyright laws slop over international borders, what do other librarians think?
I'm not talking much about copyright in my talk, but I have been boning up on some of the Australian library community's responses to the Australia – United States Free Trade Agreement (AUSFTA) which passed in May. One of the things that AUSFTA did was "reduce differences" between US and Australian copyright law which, as you can probably guess, means the Australians get to tighten up their laws and bring them more in line with restrictive US laws that favor business uses of intellectual property over community and library uses. To this end, the Australian Libraries' Copyright Committee released this Statement of Principles [word doc] which says, among other things
The recent conclusion of the Australia – United States Free Trade Agreement (AUSFTA) threatens to fundamentally shift the fine balance in our current copyright regime. The “harmonisation” of Australia’s copyright legislation to that of the United States as required by the treaty may have irreversible negative impacts unless balancing provisions are also introduced. The negative unintended consequences created by the introduction of the Digital Millenium Copyright Act 1999 (DMCA) in the United States are well recognised by copyright experts and commentators around the world.. Careful consideration needs to be given to the implementation of treaty obligations in order to avoid similar outcomes in Australia,
26Nov04 . . . .
what is with this filter anyhow?
I've been reading more writing by Australian librarians lately which, of course, I should have been doing all this time. Jennifer Cram writes great stuff, my favorite so far is Ten Questions to Ask About Filtering Software. Sharp questions deserving of serious answers for anyone who is considering filtering.
15Nov04 . . . .
why don't people read, part one in a series
As an outreach librarian, I try to figure out why people aren't coming to the library. Some of these reasons are obvious: can't park, bad hours, building too cold, don't read.... When I get to answers like "don't read" my next question is always "why not?" The answers are all over the map, but the one that drives me the craziest -- since I work with a lot of seniors -- is "can't find large print titles in anything that interests me". Now, our library has maybe a thousand large print titles, even some new ones, which is not a bad collection for a library our size. It's mostly fiction. Non-fiction circulates less, and it's also harder to get. Our largest request that comes to me is "more computer books in large type" followed by "more poetry" If you're blind in the US, you can get books on tape delivered to you for free, but you often can't choose the exact titles [think Netflix] and you don't get the tactile experience of reading which many people really like. According to the Royal National Institute of the Blind in the UK 96% of all books are not available in large print, audio or braille editions. They have started a Right to Read campaign complete with arresting graphics and sound clip by Michael Palin, to raise people's awareness of lack of access to reading materials for the blind and otherwise visually impaired. [pscott]
9Nov04 . . . .
a rock and roll party in my mailbox
I wish everyone could work out their trademark and copyright animosity as well as The Postal Service and The US Postal Service have. Witness this ugly series of events [with follow-up] concerning a copy of Gone with the Wind that used to be on a Project Gutenberg Australia site.
The world's protection of creative content may eventually settle at around the same level, say, life plus 70 years, [Mitchell's heirs' lawyer] said. The danger, he added, is that the most restrictive governments will be the ones setting that level. "National laws are going to infringe on copyrights around the world," he said.
21Oct04 . . . .
who holds the copyright to the universe?
15Oct04 . . . .
Lynne Cheneyvp's wife tells department of ed how to do their job, has educational pamphlets destroyed
While I despair of ever getting decent headlines on newspaper stories about books, the words A modern book burning did catch my eye. The story is about Lynne Cheney, wife of the current VP who objected to the content in a pamphlet being published by the Department of Ed. The pamphlet entitled "Helping Your Child Learn History" [old version here, currently out of stock] apparently refers to the National Standards for History Guidelines which advocates a more "lumps and all" approach to history which encourages expanding the history focus to include the contributions of women, minorities, radicals and other less-popular figures of their times. Good news as well as bad news. As a result of her criticism, the Department of Ed, destroyed 300,000 of the pamphlets.
At the time, Lynne Cheney, the wife of now-Vice President Cheney, led a vociferous campaign complaining that the standards were not positive enough about America's achievements and paid too little attention to figures such as Gen. Robert E. Lee, Paul Revere and Thomas Edison. At one point in the initial controversy, Cheney denounced the standards as "politicized history." [thanks lee]
Stockton [CA] City Council is giving close scrutiny to the library focussing on age-appropriateness of unfiltered internet access and graphic novels like Phoebe Glockner's A Child's Life which they called a "how-to book for pedophiles" while at the same time objecting to its being available to children. Librarians agreed and removed the book from library shelves entirely. Glockner, an assistant professor at the University of Michigan, has a few words to say about this on her own blog, and asks for advice. [thanks dan]
8Oct04 . . . .
accessibility in library web sites in KY, a sad state of affairs
Library Web Accessibility at Kentucky's 4-Year Degree Granting Colleges and Universities a paper by a Kentucky web development librarian. Guess what, despite the fact that the ADA pretty much mandates accessible web sites, we're not seeing them.
Based on low levels of compliance with the basic principles of Web accessibility and the potential of legal threats, institutions need to take accessibility issues more seriously. While the impetus to do so should fall under the rubric of professional ethics rather than avoiding a legal threat, either reason will suffice. Much like issues involving copyright, librarians embrace, on ethical terms, the protection of intellectual property while, at the same time, the threat of litigation hangs over our heads. Ethics may be important but they are also cheap. Litigation, on the other hand, is expensive. On issues such as standards, librarians understand how ignoring cataloging standards could have a negative impact on accessing collections. Can we afford to ignore Web standards when doing so impacts accessibility? [unalog]
29Sep04 . . . .
building accessible library web sites
It's delightful when someone puts together a web resource that you wish you'd done yourself. I can't wait to pass around the Accessible Design for Library Web Sites pages at work. [libinblack]
18Sep04 . . . .
government legislation concerning access to information
Put your reading caps on if you care about access to government information. The Government Reform Committee Minority Office [i.e. the Democrats] have published a big chunky report entitled "Secrecy in the Bush Administration" Covering topics ranging from FOIA to the expansion of "national security" and "sensitive information" classifications to the administration's reluctance or refusal to provide Congress with information necessary to their research and committee work. The ALA is mentioned on page 67, the USA PATRIOT Act on page seven.
For example, the National Security Archive is an independent research institute and library located at George Washington University, which collects and publishes declassified documents acquired through FOIA. As of early 2004, the National Security Archive had over 300 outstanding FOIA requests submitted in 2001, for which the government had provided no substantive response.
[secrecy news]
15Sep04 . . . .
copyright renewal tool - cites and insights
Go get the latest Cites and Insights. In it you will find many wonderful things including good reporting on the INDUCE Act, some thoughts on "dead media" and this nifty tool to at least help you ascertain whether US copyright has been renewed for a book or not.
This form searches the U. S. copyright renewal records. Any book published during the years 1923-1963 which is found in this file is still under copyright, as are all books published after 1964 (although until 1989 they still had to have proper notice and registration). Books published before 1923, or before Jan. 1, 1964 and not renewed, are out of copyright. This file does not contain listings for music, movies, or periodicals.
13Sep04 . . . .
maybe a guest spot from time to time
Eli and I may be posting a wee bit over at the commons-blog as Fred becomes a gibbering fool over his new family member.
6Sep04 . . . .
starting from the school level to make web sites accessible
IMLS gives grant to UB to create accessible web sites for libraries. The program will also try to recruit library students with disabilities to participate in this program, helping answer the question often asked "what about the librarians with disabilities?" [libwebchic]
2Sep04 . . . .
more on the doj document destruction request flap
Here's a summary of events surrounding the Department of Justice's order to destroy government repository documents, and their subsequent rescinding of that order. I'm happy to note that my Senator who is the ranking Senator on the Judiciary Committee is one of the co-signers on a letter [pdf] asking Ashcroft exactly what the DoJ was up to.
We seek clarification of your initial destruction request because it defies logic that federal statutes could be considered solely internal to the Department's deliberations and not useful for any other purpose.
24Aug04 . . . .
smartfilter not so smart
Cardiff libraries [in Wales, in the UK] finds that patrons can not get to the web page for the city's Mardi Gras event because SmartFilter -- the same filter mandated in all of Georgia's schools and libraries -- thinks that the site is pornography. The site URL does have the word "gay" in it, though the page itself is completely family friendly. Librarian.net is characterized as "politics/opinion" by the newer SmartFilter and "politics/religion" by the older version. Check your own URL. [infothought]
17Aug04 . . . .
"I know this is boring but it could save you a lawsuit"
Please read what the LibraryLaw Blog has to say about being in compliance with some arcane copyright law requirements. Does your library have someone designated to receive copyright complaints?
15Aug04 . . . .
DoJ prints almost retraction
If you were a government depository library that destroyed those DoJ documents when they asked you to, and then they changed their mind, and now you'd like fresh copies, there's a page up on the DoJ web site where you can order them. In case you were wondering what all the hubbub is about forfeiture lately, this site will give you an activist overview of the controversy.
3Aug04 . . . .
history vs accesibility, one town's problem
Is removing a stacks wing to make a public library more accessible the same as turning a church into condos? A storm is brewing over the Amesbury Public Library in Massachusetts.
The Massachusetts Board of Library Commissioners has kept a list of libraries around the state that have destroyed or altered their stack wings to improve their buildings. The commission has endorsed these demolitions because they have allowed libraries to provide access to the disabled, meet earthquake codes, eliminate fire liabilities, and use limited sites more effectively. [linkoday]
30Jul04 . . . .
update on the GPO snafu
This was a happy announcement/email to come back to. The following was quoted from ALACOUN, the ALA Council listserv.
As you know, on July 22, 2004, a notice was posted to FDLP-L advising depository libraries that the Department of Justice had requested the withdrawal of five publications that were intended for internal use only.
In response to the Government Printing Office's further inquiry into this matter, the Department of Justice has requested that I advise depository libraries to disregard the previous instructions to withdraw these publications. In making this request, the Department of Justice said, although these materials were "intended only for the internal training use of Department of Justice personnel and, as such, were inappropriately distributed to depository libraries through an administrative oversight," the Department has determined that these materials are "not sufficiently sensitive to require removal from the depository library system."
Since 1995, GPO has issued recall letters for 20 publications at the request of the publishing agencies. Seven of these publications were recalled because they were for official use or internal use only, as occurred in this instance.
Both GPO and the Department of Justice regret any inconvenience resulting from the initial request for withdrawal.
Judy Russell
Judith C. Russell (jrussell@gpo.gov)
Managing Director, Information Dissemination (Superintendent of Documents)
U.S. Government Printing Office
Phone: 202-512-0571
Fax: 202-512-1434
23Jul04 . . . .
libraries accentuating the digital divide?
The People's Library Army
[D]ue to recent legislation and court decisions, libraries have been forced to take steps which restrict, and sometimes monitor, the information available to library patrons via the Internet. As a result, fewer and fewer public libraries in the United States are allowed to offer free and equal access to information to their patrons. State and federal legislation as well as bureaucratic procedural decisions have firmly entrenched the perpetuation of the Digital Divide as the great un-sung reality of public library services in the United States today. Instead of hanging their heads in shame at these developments in librarianship, some librarians continue to deceive their patrons and to applaud these reprehensible decisions. The purpose of this web site is to provide everyone interested in these developments with information about such things as the Patriot Act and CIPA and the implications they have for services to library patrons.
There's been a memo sent by the Department of Justice to depository libraries calling for the destruction of more documents. Harbinger of doom or just housecleaning of materials freely available elsewhere?
13Jul04 . . . .
the new mantra "one time use"
Librarians, repeat after me "one time use, one time use" More on fair use from Eli. [copyfight]
8Jul04 . . . .
the chilling effect of librarians
One of the interesting side effects of bad policy like the USA PATRIOT Act and counterintuitive copyright laws, just to name a few, is that people have a tendency to be self-policing in the absence of any real hard facts on how the laws are implemented, "fair use" laws in particular. Oftentimes people, in the absence of solid legal counsel, will be over-cautionary just to avoid being on the receiving end of a lawsuit. Librarians need to make sure that they are not being cowed by nebulous copyright boogeymen and instead advocating for fair use rights for their collections and for their patrons. That's what access is all about. So says the MLA, the other MLA, AALL and many more.
Section 504(c)(2) of the Copyright Act provides special protection to nonprofit libraries, educational institutions and their employees. When we act in good faith, reasonably believing that our actions are fair use, in the unlikely event we are actually sued over a use, we will not have to pay statutory damages even if a court finds that we were wrong. This demonstrates Congressional acknowledgement of the importance of fair use and the importance of our using it!
22Jun04 . . . .
access should be on your MIND before the building project, not after
Seattle Public's new building
has some serious accessibility flaws, say disabled users. While some of these concerns are stylistic, some are quite serious and should have been thought about before the design was finalized. People with disabilities were invited to give their input about the design, but felt that it was ignored. SPL says it is willing to make changes. Similarly today ALA discussed making the ALA web site more friendly to the visually disabled stating [on the Council list] "[T]he Web Advisory Committee and ASCLA are currently working with ITTS on a priority list for implementing accessibility on an application by application basis." Wouldn't it have been nicer -- and cheaper -- if they had made accesibility a priority before they built the site?
12Jun04 . . . .
accessibility links
9Jun04 . . . .
The Information Commons: A public Policy Report
Past ALA President Nancy Kranich has authored a document for the Free Expression Policy Project about the
information commons movement. Well worth reading, though I'm sure the word "sex" in the URL will get it banned at any library using filtering software.
" the public's right to know is to be protected in today's world, citizens must have optimal opportunities to acquire and exchange information. The stakes are high, for as the Supreme Court noted years ago, American democracy requires 'the widest possible dissemination of information from diverse and antagonistic sources.'" [sethf]
4Jun04 . . . .
deaf peopel can make phone calls @ your library
As you've seen me write a zillion times, I pretty much don't review web sites or web apps that aren't library specific, but I helped a patron use this one in my library yesterday and it's worth people knowing about.
IP-relay.com is a web site put out by MCI that allows deaf and hearing impaired people a web interface to gain access to a
relay operator. They type into a chat-like java applet and a specially trained operator then speaks what they type over the phone to whomever they call. There is an extra cool
feature where using a video phone people can converse using sign language. A patron can sign to a video phone [for many deaf people this is their first language and English is second] and a relay operator will translate their signs into spoken English. For more information on deaf telecommunication hurdles in the US, I recommend reading
A Phone of Our Own: The Deaf Insurrection Against Ma Bell by Harry Lang.
7May04 . . . .
a different kind of bookmobile
Bookmobiles bring books to people who stay in one place, but how do you get books to people who move around? The award winning
Mobile Library Travellers Project tries to do just that.
[thanks owen]
28Apr04 . . . .
you know what I think about this...
The
more documents are classified by
our own government, the less The People have access to the information they need in order to be part of a functioning democracy. No wonder Bush & Co. want to replace the National Archivist with one of their own.
The Information Security Oversight Office (ISOO), a division of the National Archives, has released its report for fiscal year 2003, and it confirms what we've suspected: The government is classifying information at a staggering, sharply increasing rate. During the year, 14,228,020 documents were classified. This is an increase of 25% over last year.
12Apr04 . . . .
why open access is good for libraries
Speaking of free-as-knowledge [nod to Melvil Dewey], here is
an old speech by Bruce Sterling about the intersection of money and the public good, and the benefits of Deep Archiving, when he spoke to
LITA in 1992.
People talk a lot about the power and glory of specialized knowledge and technical expertise. Knowledge is power --- but if so, why aren't knowledgeable people in power? And it's true there's a Library of Congress. But how many librarians are there in Congress?
25Feb04 . . . .
wi-fi in C@L
If you are in Seattle for PLA [and I am jealous I cannot be with you] and looking for WiFi,
read this from technobiblio outlining your options.
18Feb04 . . . .
mickey mousing the whole damned world - copyright in australia
Oh hey, while you were watching the debates, the US and Australia were entering into a
free trade agreement. What does this mean for libraries? Australians suddenly need to shell out a whole bunch more money [generally to businesses and media companies] to
use intellectual property that was previously in the public domain.
"Dr Rimmer described the changes as a victory for corporate America over Australia's public interest, and contradicted the Intellectual Property Review Committee's recent finding there was no evidence to support a copyright extension. He said Project Guttenberg Australia, an online respository of public domain works, was likely to be among the first to suffer."
6Feb04 . . . .
bad, headline, worse problem
Sometimes it's better to have no services at all than bad services. No services means hope for good service. Bad service means that all people do is talk about how much it will cost to fix what is broken, not, say, return service to the population. A sad tale involved with the
Delhi Public Library's Braille Library.
3Feb04 . . . .
links to more resources for the visually disabled
29Jan04 . . . .
the imact of knowing Braille on reading habits & employment
The difference between patrons who have been blind since birth and ones who have lost their site in their later years in terms of reading habits is striking. It can be tough for older readers to adapt to books on tape or CD and especailly to get used to the erratic delivery and paucity of choices of
audio book delivery. This
article on Braille literacy discusses how knowledge in and fluency of Braille can affect reading habits, employability and self-sufficiency.
28Jan04 . . . .
services to visually disabled library users
For example [and sorry for two essentially linkless posts, but it's been a busy week here] yesterday I both learned to use an aggregator and went to a support group meeting for seniors with visual impairments. Most of these people used to be sighted and now can see very little, if at all. They meet once a month at a local library and swap tips, get some socializing in and sometimes have people like me come talk to them. I wanted to get their ideas on making the library more accessible to them and, in my dream world, maybe find someone who was using adaptive software to browse the web so I could have them beta-test the new site I am designing. The feedback they gave me was really interesting -- they are a lively involved bunch who enjoys reading and are trying to find ways to keep reading in their lives even with bad vision -- so I thought I'd drop it in here.
- large print isn't really large enough for these folks -- many can read using a CCTV [which we have] and a large print book, with the CCTV set to reverse text, but not otherwise
- Some said they'd like to be able to "read" books on tape/CD in the library at some sort of listening station
- many are somewhat isolated and just having a book discussion group where the people can all read or listen to books on tape or, even better they said, having someone read to them a chapter or two a week, would be lovely
- none of these people had a computer or were interested in computers too terribly much, though some said they'd like to be able to get some tutoring if it were available, one on one
- all the nifty features of our OPAC were not worth much to them, though they said they'd like to be able to call [which they can] and ask people to put books on hold for them. They said they'd like to be able to get a list of new books on CD/tape via a phone message since even a print newsletter is a hassle for them
- none of them read Braille
- accessibility of the library keeps them out of the library. We are well located by car, but parking is erratic and on-street and the book drop is a few steps from even the closest parking space which still requires parallel parking to get to. Public transportation stops two blocks away but two blocks is way too far in the Winter.
31Oct03 . . . .
even more tools for the disabled
23Oct03 . . . .
listservs and ezines
Accessibility of Online Databases: A Usability Study of Research Databases. Is your OPAC accesible to people who use adaptive technology to look up materials in your library?
Perhaps the most profound outcome of this study for those of us who work in the area of Access Technologies is the extent to which this research shows that [Section 508] conformity and usability can be at opposite ends of the spectrum. A very good example of this dichotomy is the Silver Platter databases which for the most part showed conformity with the Section 508 Standards, but are extremely difficulty to use due to poor site construction and almost a total lack of usability with an audio browser.
22Oct03 . . . .
web braille
Your print disabled patrons may be interested to know about
Web Braille, Braille books and magazines available through the web, for free to eleigible patrons and libraries. Don't know what to read? There's always the
Braille Book Review.
There's also the management perspective to consider when you are
providing library services to the disabled. As this writer points out, there are few disabled librarians and very little library education about these special populations.
The needs of the disabled are still not clearly understood by many library managers. Providing library services to the disabled need not be expensive if networking is effectively used. As negative library staff attitudes are the largest barrier to the disabled accessing the library, effective on-going education needs to be instituted. Improving library service to the disabled has proven to improve over-all library service delivery.
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