Figure 1: The Ft. Lupton Public & School Library offers programming for patrons with cognitive and learning disabilities, a vital elementFir of community outreach.
About
This project for the University of Alabama's course "CIS-650: Diversity Leadership in Information Organizations" is a review of public library outreach to the patrons living with disabilities of the United States, and ways in which the High Plains Library District of northern Colorado addresses this community's needs. I am Greg Mahaffey, an employee at two of HPLD's member libraries. This page focuses on the district's efforts to improve accessibility and community outreach, and my suggestions as I get involved with these changes.
Strategic Action Plan
My research into the High Plains Library District's accessibility taught me more than anything else that our building accessibility is sufficient. Thanks to ADA compliance we have accessible member and branch libraries that have minor practical issues that may hinder patrons with disabilities that staff may assist with, such as materials shelved higher than a patron using a wheelchair could reach due to a lack of space for more shelves.
I hope to reach out to the diversity committee with my thoughts on where the library's resources for patrons with disabilities can be improved. By sharing with them what I have learned from this program and the research detailed in this e-Portfolio, I should be able to provide guidance for growth beyond what is already been undertaken with a uniquely focused perspective on accessibility.
-Where we can improve most is seeing accessibility as an issue that goes beyond the physical structure of our buildings. Our IT crew is hard at work making our web resources compliant. The Nantes Library assistant director, Derek Werner, was aware of this project and enabled me to take a recently released training module on enabling closed captioning for HPLD staff meetings. The willingness to improve is there, and for the benefit of our patrons, we should capitalize on it. I will also point out the research of Raymond et al. (2021) to highlight common accessibility shortcomings of social media to keep in mind when updating the district's Facebook page and other social media presences.
-A directory of resources, such as the county's ADA web pages and information about both independent and assisted living communities would greatly benefit patrons with disabilities, as I have received information seeking requests for that in the past.
-The district's inclusive programming such as the Ft. Lupton Public Library's "Libraries are For Everyone" event is a demonstration of our successful outreach to patrons with disabilities. Using what I have learned during my time in LS-581 (Universal Accessibility in Web Design), we can suggest new programming tailored to underserved subsets of patrons with disabilities. We can also highlight the accessibility features of programs that naturally have accommodations for people with impairments (e.g.: subtitles during movie nights). We can practice habitual advertisement of these accessibility features during Disability Pride Month in July and on a quarterly basis. We will use the advice of staff and patrons with disabilities when composing these advertisements so that they are humanizing and not infantilizing (Timke, 2023). By showing a willingness to go the extra mile for patrons with disabilities, we can encourage their participation in our activities, inviting their input and constructive criticism on how to improve, which will be a factor in measuring the success of these efforts.
Projections
With accessibility initiatives already underway, patron impressions of our improvement should be easy to investigate. The surest way to collect patron feedback is to collect survey data. HPLD is already using this technique to plan future programming, meaning patrons will be accustomed to this type of research. As with the rest of the website, the Web Accessibility Content Guildlines (WCAG), especially Success Criteria 1.3.5 and 4.1.2 of WCAG 2.2 should be followed to ensure that the survey itself is not a barrier to patron participation (World Wide Web Consortium, n.d.). The research of Sammut et al. (2021) also provides guidance on how to increase survey participation through incentives such as gift cards and lotteries. However, as the paper also cautions against such incentives changing survey responses (we should also consider it might encourage patrons to make up disabilities if the survey is open to all patrons), we should make a survey without incentives first and utilize incentives only if initial response rate is low. Patron complaints should also be addressed swiftly and incorporated into future planning.
Equally important to survey work is the input of advocacy groups. Just as their input is vital to planning outreach initiatives, their review is important in ensuring their guidance was understood and followed. Elena outreach to Connections ensured that our Greeley locations were physically accessible and identified areas of concern. In studying grants for accessibility projects for LS-530 (Public Libraries), I learned of an additional disability advocacy additional groups working in Colorado: the Colorado Cross-Disability Coalition. With the advice of this new organization and those the district has worked with in the past, we can better understand our areas of weakness and identify specific solutions based on our community.
These combined efforts will provide means of evaluation that are both quantitative and qualitative, and it is my hope that we will see gradual but immediate improvement in impressions of our library as we solicit patron input.
Sources Cited
Raymond, M. A., Smith, H., Carlson, L., & Gupta, A. (2024). An Examination of Digital Accessibility Within Social Media Platforms: Problems for Vulnerable Consumers and Policy Implications. Journal of Advertising Research (Taylor & Francis), 64(4), 430–450. https://doi.org/10.2501/JAR-2024-026
Sammut, R., Griscti, O., & Norman, I. J. (2021). Strategies to improve response rates to web surveys: A literature review. International Journal of Nursing Studies, 123. https://doi.org/10.1016/j.ijnurstu.2021.104058
Timke, E. (2023). The Advertising Industry’s Advice on Accessibility and Disability Representation: A Critical Discourse Analysis. Journal of Advertising, 52(5), 706–720. https://doi.org/10.1080/00913367.2023.2255248
World Wide Web Consortium. (12 December, 2024). Web Content Accessibility Guidelines (WCAG) 2.2. W3. https://www.w3.org/TR/WCAG22/
Figure 2. The High Plains Library District currently uses online surveys to encourage community feedback. This tool can be used to evaluate the success of proposed accessibility initiatives.