Departing Editor Reflects on Trends in Library Tech Access

Citation

Johnson, D. (1999), "Departing Editor Reflects on Trends in Library Tech Access", Library Hi Tech News, Vol. 16 No. 5. https://doi.org/10.1108/lhtn.1999.23916ead.001

Departing Editor Reflects on Trends in Library Tech Access

Departing Editor Reflects on Trends in Library Tech Access

[Ed: "EASI Access to Library Automation," a regular feature of Library Hi Tech News, examines new technology, information sources and services, and other news of interest to librarians concerned with providing quality services to their patrons with disabilities. EASI (Equal Access to Software and Information), in affiliation with the American Association of Higher Education (AAHE), is concerned with new and emerging technologies for computer users with disabilities.]

Library consulting and management commitments have been piling up on the desk of Courtney Deines-Jones. She is now library technical advisor to the National Rehabilitation Information Center (NARIC), director of the National Information Center on Developmental Disabilities, and advisor to the US Fish and Wildlife Reference Service, among other duties. So, after four years as editor of the EASI Access Column, Courtney is leaving the position and I will be taking over. Courtney's columns have contributed greatly to our awareness of technology access issues, and she has reported on many possible solutions. I decided to ask her to reflect on some of the issues she has examined in her years as column editor and share some of the conclusions she has reached.

DJ: What is your impression of general trends in accessible technology (AT) for libraries?

CD-J: Regarding the actual technology itself, the biggest trend is that more AT applications are emerging as "mainstream" technology, especially things like voice recognition software and also some of the "accessibility" settings on Windows and other programs. The disability rights movement has had some success especially in the United States in getting AT or at least AT readiness built into programs as they are developed, instead of tacked on afterwards, which had been the norm. This benefits libraries because it reduces compatibility issues.

Honestly, though, I think that during the time I have been involved with libraries and AT, the most important AT trend for libraries has been within the market. At first, after the ADA (Americans with Disabilities Act) was passed, libraries realized they had to provide access, and AT providers looked at the potential of libraries as an audience. Some accessibility features were built into online patron access catalogs (OPACs) and many libraries with large patron bases purchased assistive listening devices, magnifiers, reading machines, and the like. But with the exception of OPAC adaptations and a few other products, none of this AT was designed for libraries.

In the mid-90s there were several AT developers exhibiting at library shows, testing the waters to see what the market was. Now, there are few if any and again the products are generally magnifiers, readers, and other tools designed for mainstream use. I think AT providers have decided that libraries simply are not a big enough market to warrant targeting for development and sales, and librarians are not pushing for the development of library-specific technology. There are some AT folks working behind the scenes with OPAC and library software developers, but even here the library trade is not their bread and butter ­ they still see the bulk of their profits in direct consumer trade and educational settings.

DJ: But librarians do remain concerned about improving their accessibility.

CD-J: I have mixed feelings about what is happening in libraries. In my work and through my membership in various ALA organizations focused on services to people with disabilities, I find that there continues to be improvement in facility and program accessibility, including Web site and computer accessibility and availability of AT, but it seems to me this is driven more by a sense that providing services to people with disabilities is something libraries have to do, rather than that it is something they want to do.

I am also critical of the idea that people with disabilities who require AT have "special needs." These patrons have the same information needs as everyone else ­ it is their access tools and strategies that may differ from the standard interface.

DJ: Assuming you're right that librarians tend to see accessibility as something they have to pursue, what's the cause, and what should be done about it?

CD-J: Library administrators and library educators need to recruit more qualified people with disabilities into the profession. At first glance, this may not relate to the question of access or AT issues, but I strongly believe that if more professionals with disabilities were employed by libraries, awareness would rise and the resource constraints would not seem so overwhelming, since librarians and administrators would know firsthand from their staff members what works and what doesn't, and that many solutions to access problems, even technical ones, do not require exorbitant costs in terms of time or money. Having more staff with disabilities would also help with the challenge of outreach to overcome a traditional distrust of the library among the disability community.

DJ: I'm a little puzzled over what you mean by "traditional distrust". I suppose what you mean is that people with certain disabilities have felt until recently that they could never use regular library services. People with learning disabilities have felt intimidated by books, people with physical disabilities of the upper extremities have felt they could never handle books, and if blind people love Talking Books it is because they feel they cannot use the rest of the books in the library. But won't these all-too-rational feelings go away as soon as people with these disabilities learn that new technologies are available?

CD-J: Not necessarily, because the problem goes deeper. Public institutions have an unfortunate historical legacy of excluding people with disabilities, and this extends to libraries. The library is trumpeted as a place for learning, and all too often people with any type of disability have been perceived as being unable to learn. There was an attitude on the part of too many libraries and educational institutions that people with disabilities should be steered in very specific vocational directions and that there was no place for them in "normal" schools or libraries. It is now incumbent upon libraries to prove that they have moved beyond this narrow definition of who is valued at the library. After all, few people patronize a business where they do not feel welcome, no matter how good its products are. But it has been less than ten years since passage of the ADA and these attitudes do not change overnight. People with disabilities have to know, yes, that they physically can access information in libraries, but it is even more important for the library to show that it is welcoming people, not admitting them grudgingly. This is the type of distrust that I think still must be overcome ­ that institutions are opening their doors only because they have to, and that people with disabilities aren't really welcome. It is a much harder thing to change than remodeling bathrooms or installing AT.

DJ: Many librarians complain that they buy expensive assistive technology and then nobody uses it. What do you think is going wrong? Or do you think this complaint is unjustified?

CD-J: I do think this is a valid complaint. Some time ago I wrote about one public library that had limited hours for those departments housing AT. This is a very common practice, and it definitely restricts access and causes equipment to sit around unused. Librarians are in a difficult position, though, because so many pieces of the infrastructure are involved in making a library accessible. There is the facility itself, and then there are concerns about the public transportation network, educational and job considerations, outreach challenges, and sometimes a need to involve other people within a patron's network such as family and caregivers. I do think this is more of a concern in public libraries; school and academic libraries can purchase equipment designed to accommodate specific faculty, student, or staff members.

DJ: Many of your columns have dealt with conferences. How valuable have you found the technology-oriented conferences you've attended?

CD-J: Closing the Gap is very valuable for school librarians and educators, as it focuses on AT designed to increase educational, vocational, and social success. Much of the technology is designed for use by one individual, rather than by many users, which makes it less appropriate for public librarians who need to buy one piece of AT to serve many disparate patrons. Consumer-oriented exhibitions such as Abilities Expo are, I think, most useful as an awareness tool. They are inexpensive to attend, and they can provide not only a snapshot of the kinds of technology in which consumers are interested, but also the mere fact of seeing so many people from the disability community at one time is a powerful reinforcement of the knowledge that this is a substantial potential library patron base waiting to be served. Libraries represent only a small fraction of the AT market, so library applications are not prominently featured at most AT-related conferences, although EASI and some other organizations do occasionally run library-related "tracks" or sponsor short courses on library AT. ALA experimented with an AT section on the exhibits floor and it met with mixed results. Some people liked the idea of having all AT in one place; others felt that it was reinforcing the notion that AT is somehow not a "regular" library issue and preferred integrating these vendors throughout the show. The decline in AT-related exhibitors atALA has made the question moot, at least for the time being.

DJ: In your article on the 1998 American Library Association (ALA) convention in Washington (Deines-Jones, 1998), you noted that several vendors who had been at previous ALA meetings skipped that one. Some comments by the president of Enabling Technologies (a Braille printer manufacturer) may shed some light on this (Schenk, 1997). Discussing ways to reduce the high per-unit costs of products for blind people, he suggests that marketing costs would be the best target for cost cutting, and he points to convention-related costs, such as long exhibition hours that require sending extra representatives. He singles out meetings in Washington, DC, for absurdly high charges for items such as extension cords and exhibitors' chairs. I attended the 1998 ALA meeting as an exhibitor for NARIC, and I well remember carrying a folding chair on the Metro to avoid the convention center's rental charge. So the unfortunate decline of AT vendors at ALA conventions may have more to do with industry economics than with librarians' AT practices.

CD-J: Yes, this is exactly right, and it ties in with my comments above about libraries representing only a small part of the AT market.

DJ: Your earlier suggestion that consumer-oriented exhibitions are most valuable as awareness tools is primarily based on general exhibitions, which tend to be dominated by the most numerous groups, such as wheelchair users, whose most relevant technologies are not particularly relevant to libraries. But some consumer conventions, such as the conventions of the National Federation of the Blind (NFB) and its rival, the American Council of the Blind (ACB), do tend to have many exhibitors whose products would be of special interest to librarians.

CD-J: That's true. Large AT conferences such as CSUN (the California State University ­ Northridge AT conference) as well as NFB and ACB meetings that have exhibits portions are excellent information sources for librarians who live where these conferences are being held. They provide an opportunity to see a number of AT vendors and also to talk with the people who use the technology. But the fact of the matter is that most librarians are funded only for one or two conference trips each year, and traveling to go to a conference that isn't directly related to library services is probably not an option for most librarians.

What I would recommend is that librarians tour facilities when they are at ALA Annual, ALA MidWinter, Public Library Association, or other conferences. There is usually a broad range of tours offered through scheduled programs, and librarians can also strike out on their own to see public, school, and special libraries. Tours can be worked out in advance on professional listservs and the like and they give librarians a chance to see products in situ and to ask librarians how often equipment is used, how satisfied the library is with the vendors, how the AT works with other systems, etc. OPAC and other vendor user group meetings are also a good venue to exchange ideas about AT as it relates to systems concerns.

Consumer conventions mentioned in this article:

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  Each year the American Council of the Blind (ACB) and the National Federation of the Blind (NFB) hold their national conventions during the first week of July, generally with overlapping schedules. The 1999 ACB convention will be held at the Westin Hotel in Los Angeles, 3-9 July. For information call (202) 467-5081 or go to http://www.acb.org.

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  The 1999 NFB convention will be held 1-6 July at the Marriott Marquis in Atlanta. For information call (410) 659-9314 or go to http://www.nfb.org.

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  The CSUN Conference on Technology for Persons with Disabilities, sponsored by the California State University ­ Northridge, Center on Disabilities, is held each March in Los Angeles. For information call (818) 677- 2578 or go to http://www.csun.edu/cod.

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  The 1999 Closing the Gap Conference on Computer Technology in Special Education and Rehabilitation will be held 21-23 October at the Radisson South Hotel and the adjacent Hotel Sofitel in Bloomington, Minnesota, a town near Minneapolis that is its regular location. For information call (507) 248-3294 or go to http://www.closingthegap.com.

References

Deines-Jones, C. (1998), "Report from ALA '98", Library Hi Tech News, No.155, September, pp. 18-19.

Schenk, T. (1997), "Better, smaller, cheaper," Braille Monitor, Vol. 40 No. 1, January, pp. 44-45. This issue of Braille Monitor contains the proceedings of the third US-Canada Conference on Technology for the Blind, with presentations by a number of prominent figures in the field. The entire issue is available at http://www.nfb.org/brlm9701.htm.

David Johnson is an Abstractor/ Information Specialist at the National Rehabilitation Information Center (NARIC). Readers with questions, comments, or suggestions may e-mail him at jdivad@aol.com.