The Integrated Accessible Library: A model of service development for the 21st century.
As we enter the Information Age, we risk excluding a million of our citizens - people who have some form of serious visual impairment. Many are elderly and relatively isolated - others are young people in work - or even young children: people who need access to information and to works of imagination: novels, plays, poetry, pictures, video and new multimedia packages. The information and communications technology revolution ought to be a passport to inclusiveness: instead it risks perpetrating inequality. Libraries - the access points to information for so many of us need to keep up with the technology of access.
The Integrated Accessible Library: A model of service development for the 21st century makes the case for a national initiative to make all library and information services accessible to people who are blind or have a visual impairment. The Resources for Visually Impaired Users of the Electronic Library (REVIEL) Project has investigated the current state of accessible services and explored what would be needed to achieve national excellence in this field. A model is presented in The Integrated Accessible Library: A model of service development for the 21st century, which if implemented would enable libraries to fulfil their responsibilities to provide inclusive services, ensuring that no-one is excluded because of their visual impairment. As we move into increasingly electronic information environments, in which visual images are playing an increasing role as carriers of content, inclusion cannot be achieved by default or by wishful thinking or by small bands of committed volunteers. Making all library and information services accessible should be on the agenda of every information professional and every policy maker. Working together, we can reach the goal of accessible services.
Authors: Peter Brophy and Jenny Craven. CERLIM, 1999 ISBN: 0 9535343 16, ISSN: 1366-8218,Price: £18 including post and packing.
An electronic version of the report is available in Word (508 Kb) or PDF (562 Kb) formats.