[Athen] New Resource for Library Access

[Gaeir Dietrich]

Please forgive cross-posts

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The Association of Research Libraries (ARL) has recently released a Web site
on accessibility at ARL libraries:

 

http://accessibility.arl.org/ 

 

The site includes resources and promising practices, as well as a link (see
below) to the background for ARL's accessibility initiative. This background
document, the Report of the ARL Joint Task Force on Services to Patrons with
Print Disabilities,  presents a very well-documented case for the need for
library involvement in accessibility:

 

 
<http://www.arl.org/storage/documents/publications/print-disabilities-tfrepo
rt02nov12.pdf> 2012  Report of the ARL Joint Task Force on Services to
Patrons with Print Disability 

 

Personally, I have always been very impressed with librarians, and I am
overjoyed to see the libraries beginning to take an active interest in
accessibility. Having them as part of our accessibility team is an enormous
step forward!

 

I would like to encourage all of you to share the ARL Web site with your
college libraries and, if appropriate, to enter a discussion with your chief
librarian and library staff about how they can become part of the
accessibility solution on campus. The recent court cases with the Hathi
Trust show that the libraries can take a leadership role in creating access
to resources that formally provided little benefit to students with print
disabilities because of the inaccessible format.

 

Not sure why the Hathi Trust case is important? Consider attending the AHEAD
conference, July 14-19, 2014, in Sacramento, CA. A number of us will be
including information on the Hathi Trust in our presentations. 

^^^^^^^^^^^^^^^^

Gaeir (rhymes with "fire") Dietrich
High Tech Center Training Unit of the
California Community Colleges
De Anza College, Cupertino, CA
 <http://www.htctu.net/> www.htctu.net  
408-996-6047

^^^^^^^^^^^^^^^^

If you would like to schedule a site visit, training, or phone consultation,
please contact HTCTU Secretary, Jasper Haze at   <mailto:jhaze at htctu.net>
jhaze at htctu.net  or  408-996-4636; to ensure that priority e-mails are seen,
please copy Jasper on important and time-sensitive matters.

 

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