I guest-posted on Hack Library School about two basic tips for working with patrons with disabilities. Check out the post to see how I broke down two main tips: “People with disabilities are people first” and “don’t assume…”
(In some ways the post feels ridiculous in a I-shouldn’t-have-to-write-this way. Of course PWD are people first. But the problem is that a lot of us are brought up with mixed or wrong messages about persons who happen to have disabilities and it can be a challenge to correct those.
The tl;dr is that ebooks are an important piece of the puzzle that is solving accessibility (large print, audiobooks, ebooks, special software, etc.). Remove that piece, and you remove the ability of a certain group to read those books, or you increase the financial or time cost.
A blog post on how to take a relay or TTY call and basic instructions as a flier.
As I’ve been in library school, I’ve become more aware of disability and the need for accessibility. Some of this came when I suffered a severe injury that put me on disability leave for a month. I had to use Dragon Naturally Speaking to write my assignments and papers for school and Siri to tweet for me. The full healing process took a whole year and I found myself coping with inaccessible doors, etc.