Author: jessamyn

Accessibility in books, websites, libraries and your mind.

Posted on by jessamyn

I have been reading a lot of books about accessible design lately. This started around the time that I got sent this story about the National Library for the Blind in Norway and some of the design flaws that make it very hard for the visually disabled to get into, much less use. The Vermont Technical College has a lot of these books on access. Sadly, I am one of the only people to have checked them out in the last decade. As an aside, I think at this point I would have a very hard time going back to a library where they didn’t have datestamps in the back of the book. I think libraries keeping circulation info “secret” — not on purpose, but by ILS system design — is a decline in information-sharing with patrons, and a shame. Here are the books I have read, with links to my reviews.

Beautiful Barrier Free
Access by Design
Design for Dignity: Studies in Accessibility

And, of course, let’s remember how to make our web sites accessible. Jacob Nielsen has come out with lists of top ten web design mistakes as well as top ten weblog design mistakes. Check to see if you make any of these mistakes. I recently wrote a note to ALA’s webmaster commenting on the lack of ALT or title tags on the ALA Midwinter Meeting page. It’s a nice looking page, but information is imparted through lots of graphics, with no alternate navigation. Usually there is a set of text links at the bottom of the page if they use images for navigation. This is what someone viewing the page with a text-only browser would see. I cannot stress enough: this is the conference information page for the largest library association in the world. If we can’t follow our own rules about accessibility, how can we expect others to?

A Day in the Life

Posted on by jessamyn

This post by the Rambling Librarian made me think about what I do, again. Today was a short day actually. I got up, swapped some email with my boss [“Why won’t the sysadmin lady give you speakers for the computers for the evening spanish class?” ” I don’t KNOW, can you help?” “Probably, sure, let’s look at it tomorrow.”] did a bit of work on a library website I’m helping design, and then got in the car.

I drove about 35 miles to one of the libraries I work with. I steppped in and said hi to the librarian who was busy putting book covers on books. She is a solo librarian except for a few hours on Saturday when a volunteer comes in to staff the desk. I go there every other week for two hours and answer computer questions for her. Today she was curious about how to make flyers using Word, how to clear her history on her browser, and she gave me some advice on books to read for my upcoming trip. She was worried she had read my email when she came across my blog in her list of addresses in her address bar of her browser. Teaching moment: what is a blog?

A patron came in and had a document he needed to attach to an email and we all gathered around the pretty new fax/scanner/printer they had bought and learned to use it to scan and save a document. He was sending it to Japan and said he prefers email to fax because if he emails in the middle of the night, it won’t wake people up. He thanked me for my help and helped the librarian change the light bulbs that she couldn’t reach. A girl came in who had to do community service and wanted to know if she could do it at the library. She says she hangs out there all the time because the kids at school are mean to her and trip her in the halls and the library is peaceful and quiet. She asked me about the vocational school I work at and how long it would be before she’d be able to go there [ten months, probably]. She asked if people were mean to me in school, after noticing my deadlocks and nose ring and I said “All the time, but it got better.” She wants to go to Harvard Law School eventually, or run a no-kill animal shelter. I told her there are some good books on bullying and said yes, her grandmother’s advice to “Just ignore them” while well-meant, might not solve her problems. I checked out one book for myself and bought three more from the booksale and headed on.

Another 20 miles got me to the next library where a cheerful volunteer and two librarians asked me to take off my shoes and gave me a set of slippers for the duration of my stay. They showed me around their newly renovated library. They had gotten people in the community to build custom cabinets for their Gates Computers where the four desktop machines share dial-up via a LAN. I asked them if they used WebJunction and they said they though it was hard to use, so they mostly muddled through on their own, or used Google for tech support questions. I showed them how to lay out a three column flyer that they were printing up for new community members. It had information like where the dump is, how to get medical care, and who to talk about the historical society. We scanned a postcard with a picture of the local covered bridge to put on the cover when all the entries are done. I got a library card there too. When I checked out a book, I cannot tell a lie gentle reader, I wrote my name on the library card and handed it to the redheaded librarian.

Digital Divisions – Pew Report

Posted on by jessamyn

Please enjoy these data excerpts from the recent Pew report on the Digital Divide in the United States.

68% of adults use the Internet, 32% do not. Sometimes this lack of use is by choice and sometimes it isn’t.
73% of adults live in a household with an Internet connection and 27% do not.
22% of adults have never used the Internet and do not have access in their homes.
38% of adults living with disabilities have access to the Internet.
22% of adults over 70 have Internet access whereas 53% of adults between 60 and 69 have access.
11% of Internet non-users say that getting access is too difficult, frustrating or expensive.

The Pew survey splits Internet users into three general groups: cold, tepid and hot. Hot users are engaged with the Internet, they use it at home, they use fast connections. They are likely to be under 50, and college graduates. They can get online when they need to and are comfortable in the online world. Cold users are the 22% who have never used the Internet, they are often have a high school education or less, and they are often over 65. They would have trouble getting online if they needed to. Tepid users account for 40% of Internet users in the US. They usually either have a slow connection, or no regular connection, are generally younger than the “cold” users, and could go online if they really needed to.

I’m in the process of putting together a talk that I’m giving at SJSU on the 26th, so I’m sure I’ll be mulling these answers over quite a bit in the near future — there are more tidbits that outline race vs connectivity in ways that are fascinating — but these are just to toss out for people who may not want to read the whole report.