Submitted by Alec C. McFarlane, President, Library for Deaf Action
Our work on behalf of the Deaf Cultural Digital Library (DCDL) continues. We are working to put this on the National Agenda at ALA and we are working to get support from the professionals and the grass roots populace from within and without ALA. With almost 60,000 members and international connections we believe ALA is one of the best –but not the only– platforms to push the concept. Our work has borne some fruits, and we will be bringing this back to our delegates, our representatives, and our congressmen and congresswomen.
We intend to resubmit the DCDL Bill to the Maryland General Assembly in the upcoming 2013 session beginning in January.
It is nice to have someone else speak about what we are doing, and I think that “Holly the Librarian” has done a splendid job of supporting us and also of making her own pointed comments. This is her blog: http://hollythelibrarian.com/2013/07/bridging-deaf-cultures-your-library-ala2013/ Thank You Holly Lipschultz, MLIS for this posting.
Deaf Cultural Digital Library is a law proposed and passed, with amendment, by the Maryland General Assembly in 2012 (http://msa.maryland.gov/msa/mdmanual/26excom/defunct/html/11deaf.html)
Library for Deaf Action (LDA) is a private publisher specializing in networking, programming, consulting. and Deaf Culture. By way of its public service arm, FOLDA or Friends of Libraries for Deaf Action (and aka The Red Notebook http://www.folda.net/home/index.html) we have been pursuing the idea of a Central Library to serve the needs of the deaf community and to bridge the divide. We see this as a civil right that should be applied nationally, and indeed internationally.