Submitted by Martha Church, Reference Services, West Hartford Public Library

Several days each week, a young woman visits the Noah Webster Library in West Hartford, Connecticut, and spends the morning using equipment in the Library’s assistive technology area. Joanne has very limited vision but, using resources available at the library, she is able to perform a variety of tasks that most of us take for granted: reading a menu, checking the expiration date on a coupon, or following the daily news on a variety of Internet sites.

In early 2010, Joanne was asked to participate in a focus group to help determine how the West Hartford Public Library could better serve the needs of community members with sensory and motor disabilities. The focus group sessions were the crucial preliminary step in preparing an LSTA grant to improve library service to this segment of our population.

In 2006-7, the West Hartford Library’s main facility, the Noah Webster Library, was completely renovated and physical access to the building was improved.   However, what became clear after the renovation was that our patrons with disabilities still had difficulty using our collections and information resources.  In talking to these users, we soon recognized that we had to find a way to move beyond basic building accessibility to make what was in the building more available to all our patrons.

We began our project by contacting a variety of local and state groups and organizations, meeting with them to gather names of individuals who would be willing to take part in a series of focus groups.  These organizations included our town’s human services department and commission on persons with disabilities, the Connecticut State Library for the Blind and Physically Handicapped, the State Board of Education for the Blind, the New England Assistive Technology Center and the American School for the Deaf. With their input, we scheduled a series of three focus group sessions, one each for individuals with visual, motor and hearing challenges.

Feedback from the focus groups formed the blueprint for our grant proposal.  Participants offered many concrete suggestions for specialized equipment such as an adjustable height workstation and screen magnification software or for simple changes such as improved signage, better task lighting and a more informative and accessible webpage detailing our collections, resources and programs. 

Perhaps the most helpful comments, however, were those made by participants in every single focus group; that library staff needed to develop “accessible attitudes.” One participant, who regularly visits the library accompanied by a guide dog, shared her experience asking a staff member the location of the audiobooks. The staff member pointed to them and replied, “They’re over there.” Clearly, this was not a helpful or sensitive response to someone who is blind. When we heard this story, we knew it was imperative that we find a way to help our staff become more sensitive to and comfortable with the needs of our patrons with disabilities. A plan to address this was included in the grant proposal.

The FAIR @ Your Library project was awarded LSTA funding in July of 2010. The library acquired a variety of assistive technology products and software all suggested by focus group participants. In addition, we promoted the use of these specialized products through focused publicity and collaboration with community agencies, again following the suggestions made by members of the focus groups.

Finally, to help library staff develop the “accessible attitudes” our focus group participants had mentioned, we closed the library to the public for an entire day so that all staff members could participate in a sensitivity training workshop.  Lead by trainers from the New England Assistive Technology Center in Hartford, Connecticut, everyone took turns moving around the library in a wheelchair or trying to locate materials wearing goggles that create the effect of a visual disability. These activities really brought home the enormity of the challenges faced each day by our patrons with disabilities. As one staff member commented,  “When I realize how hard it must be for some of them simply to get dressed and come to the library,  I know I have to do whatever I can to make their visits here positive and productive.”

Was our grant a success? Did we meet our goal to enable people with disabling conditions to more fully, easily and independently access the library’s resources to pursue their educational, social, professional, and recreational needs? To find out, just ask Joanne. She’s here at the library most every day.

West Hartford Library’s Accessibility video can be seen at: http://www.youtube.com/watch?v=c9B93gTDMfc