By Diana Reese, ASCLA president and coordinator, institutional library development, Colorado State Library

The world is still round, but the shape of the association world is changing. After extensive feedback from the ASCLA membership in various venues over the last 18 months, our association may be taking on a new shape, too. (more…)

Mark your calendar for the 2011 Midwinter Meeting and Annual Conference! We’ll be announcing the program slate for ASCLA—including preconferences and institutes—in the early fall on the ASCLA blog, but for now here are some dates to mark on your calendar. (more…)

If there’s one thing we here at ASCLA love, it’s staying in touch with you. As a member of ASCLA, we keep you informed of what’s going on with our division, and also pass along information about activities within ALA that are relevant to your work life. That’s why it’s critical that we have the most up-to-date contact information for you in our membership database. A current e-mail address is particularly important, because the majority of communication sent out from the office is in electronic form. (more…)

Located at http://ascla.ala.org/blog/, the ASCLA Blog is the first place to go on the web for information about what’s happening with ASCLA. The blog is where we post news about our conference events, online learning opportunities, calls for contribution and submission, award winners and other news tidbits we pick up from around the library community, and also from around ALA. Subscribing to our RSS feed is a great way to make sure you’re the first to know when there’s news from ASCLA. Go to http://ascla.ala.org/blog/feed/, select your feed application type, and then click “Subscribe now!”

By Susan Jaworski, Interlibrary Loan Clerk, Buffalo State College, E.H. Butler Library

A version of this article appears in ERIC – World’s Largest Digital Library of Education Literature. ED51134, Summer 2010. Web. 14 Sept. 2010. http://www.eric.ed.gov.

Through collaboration with two distinct programs, the College-Based Transition Program and the Work Transition Program, staff members at E. H. Butler Library, Buffalo State College to help make inclusivity and diversity more than just buzzwords; here on this campus they are part everyday normal life. (more…)

By Richard J. Smith, director, Wolfner Library

In 2009, the National Library Service for the Blind and Physically Handicapped (NLSBPH) initiated a $75 million nationwide transition from analog to digital recorded talking books. The audio cassette talking book format, which was introduced in the late 1970’s, served as the longtime workhorse for delivering millions of talking books to over 700,000 readers nationwide unable to read standard printed materials. The transition planned to replace the obsolete audio cassette technology with USB flash drive technology, and would mean the replacement of millions of books and thousands of cassette players all across the United States. This article summarizes the efforts of the Wolfner Library of Missouri to bring about that change. (more…)

By Ann MacKay Snowman, head of access services, Penn State University Libraries

Campus partnerships are extremely important in meeting the needs of students with disabilities. The community of educators and service providers represent a wide variety of collaborators whose partnership lead to a richer more vigorous network of support. Susan Hayya, coordinator of Penn State’s Office of Library Services for Persons with Disabilities has been able to accomplish quite a lot on behalf of her clients by reaching out to that community. The return on investment to cultivate and steward those partnerships is well worth the effort. (more…)

By Diane Walden, LSPF vice-chair, correctional libraries senior consultant, Colorado State Library and Ray James, LSPF chair, researcher, Institutional Survey (Austin, Texas)

On the morning of June 29, 2010, we watched and listened as the American Library Association Council’s vote drew near on the report of the Intellectual Freedom Committee (IFC), and we saw an approaching milestone. We held our breaths, and then exhaled a silent but jubilant yell as the IFC report passed without protest. That report contained the “Prisoners’ Right to Read: An Interpretation of the Library Bill of Rights,” that for two years had consumed countless hours for us and hundreds of others concerned with library services to the incarcerated and detained. (more…)

By Julie Sears, online subscription manager,Sociometrics Corporation

One of our most under-served populations—incarcerated youth—is one of the highest risk populations for engaging in high risk social behaviors that can ultimately threaten the entire community. In 2000, young adults, 15 to 24 years old, represented approximately 25% of sexually active people in the United States yet accounted for nearly 50% of new STI cases. Adolescents in detention facilities report more risk behaviors and begin these behaviors at a younger age than adolescents out in the community. Many common characteristics of the detained youth compound their lack of successful behavioral skills and access to knowledge that may reduce or eliminate the risky activities that ultimately lead to greater community health problems. These attributes include: usually living in poverty and high crime situations; little to no access to regular or quality health care; in relatively poorer overall health than non-detained peers; and spending significant time away from the classroom, with fewer quality educational resources when in class. (more…)

By Susan Mark, statistics librarian, Wyoming State Library

This article originally appeared in the July 2010 issue of The Rapsheet, the newsletter of Wyoming’s Department of Corrections.

At the Wyoming Women’s Center, new inmates rediscover reading on the intake unit, thanks to the library book carts. At the Medium Correctional Institution, staff hold adult storytimes, and inmates clamor to hear each new chapter – many of them have never had someone read to them. At the minimum security facilities, inmates donate small bits of money from limited funds to help purchase movies and newer fiction. At the Penitentiary, book carts rolled out to the units quickly develop big gaps as the men grab their latest round of reading. (more…)

By Janice Rosen, librarian, Library Services for the Deaf Community, Adaptive Services Division, DC Public Library

On Sunday, June 27, the DC Public Library and the District of Columbia Association of the Deaf co-sponsored an afternoon seminar, “Libraries, Access, and ASL Literature: The Deaf Community Shares Our Not-So-Silent Stories,” in conjunction with the 2010 ALA Annual Conference. The goal of the seminar was to help librarians create libraries that support the deaf community’s efforts to be understood as a cultural and linguistic minority, and to have resources on the shelves that would accurately reflect the deaf community’s culture and language. (more…)

By Glennor Shirley, library coordinator, Maryland Correctional Education Libraries

On Monday, Jun. 28, the Libraries Serving Special Populations Section (LSSPS) of ASCLA hosted a tour of library and education departments at Jessup Correctional Institution (JCI) as part of the section’s programming activities at the 2010 ALA Annual Conference in Washington D.C. I, along with JCI Warden John Wolfe, accompanied the tour group of 22 librarians while Ruth Mewborn, librarian at JCI and Patuxent Institute and Library Services to Prisoners Forum (LSPF) Chair Diane Walden, answered questions on library services to prisoners. (more…)

This September, the Indiana Talking Book and Braille Library will host the fifth-annual Indiana Vision Expo at the Indiana State Library in Indianapolis. This free event was created for persons with vision loss, their friends and families, service providers, educators, health care professionals, librarians and other consumers interested in products and services designed to promote independent living. (more…)

By Susan Jaworski, Interlibrary Loan Clerk, Buffalo State College, E.H. Butler Library

A version of this article appears in ERIC – World’s Largest Digital Library of Education Literature. ED51134, Summer 2010. Web. 14 Sept. 2010. http://www.eric.ed.gov/.

Through collaboration with two distinct programs, the College-Based Transition Program and the Work Transition Program, staff members at E. H. Butler Library, Buffalo State College to help make inclusivity and diversity more than just buzzwords; here on this campus they are part everyday normal life. (more…)

By Diana Reese, ASCLA president and coordinator, institutional library development, Colorado State Library

Hiking the Colorado Trail one weekend, I met a lone hiker using a long cane. I was momentarily stunned to see a blind person on the trail. I couldn’t resist asking him how he managed to stay on the trail and avoid tripping. I have two good eyes and I can’t manage to consistently accomplish both of these on a good day! He explained that, of course, his cane guided him over and around the roots and rocks, but as for staying on the trail, he had a GPS with speech-to-text capabilities that alerted him when he strayed. I never thought of a GPS as an assistive technology before! It is wonderful that developing technologies increasingly provide individuals of all abilities with experiences they might not otherwise have, whether on the trail or in a library. The important work of ASCLA’s members provides librarians with information to understand and manage these developing technologies and other access issues so that all individuals have richer library experiences. (more…)

By Donna Mesker, Treatment Mall Director, Evansville State Hospital, Evansville, IN

Evansville (In.) State Hospital has provided services for persons with mental illness since 1890. In February 2010, the hospital began “Chapter Challenge”—a book club that not only promotes reading as a daily activity for hospital clients, but addresses a number of client needs and treatment goals. (more…)

By Eusebia Milanes, library associate, and Carrie Banks, senior supervising librarian, Brooklyn Public Library

The Child’s Place for Children with Special Needs at Brooklyn Public Library recently began its first bilingual English/Spanish programming at the Sunset Park and Red Hook Libraries. Club Nuestro Jardin (Our Garden Club) is a literature-based gardening program for children with and without disabilities begun in 1999 monolingually at the Flatlands Library. Each program includes reading aloud, music, movement, discussion and gardening. It is a fun, multi-sensory program that is based on multiple intelligences and universal design principals. The fact than none of these urban children have gardening experience provides a level playing field for those with and without disabilities. (more…)

By Alice L. Hagemeyer, MLS

Thanks to the extraordinary efforts of advocates across the country and in Washington, DC, the Coalition of Organizations for Accessible Technology (COAT) and other disability organizations have successfully secured a monumental step for Americans in accessible technology. (more…)

By Sherrie Kristin, Acquisitions, The Library, Purdue University Calumet

It is hard to imagine a library where someone is unable to read the great works in literature or fiction, to take advantage of the wealth of information in databases and journals or to research and write a paper independently. But for some students at Purdue University Calumet, this was the challenge they faced. Our staff saw this as an unnecessary hurdle for our students who were differently-abled. (more…)