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?
Category: access
accessibility links
Library Web Chic collates some links about accessible web sites
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]
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.
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]