Building Resource Guides on Disabilities, Disability Theory, and Assistive Technologies
- 1. JJ Pionke and Jaena Manson University of Illinois at Urbana-Champaign Building Resource Guides on Disabilities, Disability Theory, and Assistive Technologies Acknowledgments This project was made possible by funding from an American Library Association Carnegie Whitney Grant. References and Further Reading o Association of Specialized & Cooperative Library Agencies. (2006, December 4). Library Services for People with Disabilities Policy. http://www.ala.org/ascla/resources/libraryservices o American Library Association. (2012, May 4). Diversity Standards: Cultural Competency for Academic Libraries (2012). http://www.ala.org/acrl/standards/diversity o Elturk, G. (2003). Diversity and Cultural Competency. Colorado Libraries, 29(4), 5–7. o Hee-Yoon Yoon, & Sin-Young Kim. (2016). A Study of Collection Development Policy to Strengthen South Korea’s Library Services for Persons with Disabilities. 40(2), 162–185. o Williams, V. K., & Deyoe, N. (2014). Diverse Population, Diverse Collection? Youth Collections in the United States. Technical Services Quarterly, 31(2), 97–121. https://doi.org/10.1080/07317131.2014.875373 Introduction Encouraging Access and Understanding http://www.haksblog.com/wp-content/uploads/2015/07/ada25-logo-horiz-300-1.jpg The Americans with Disabilities Act celebrated its 25th anniversary in 2015. While many libraries are proud of being ADA compliant, there still is a deficit in resources for and about individuals with disabilities. With funding from an American Library Association Carnegie- Whitney Grant, we have created a list of resource guides on various disabilities, disability theory, and assistive technologies in an effort to highlight resources in these areas. Content Assessment and Outreach Finding Gaps in Your Collection o It was intended from the beginning to create a free collection of resources that are available to anyone in the world, whether they have a scholarly or personal interest in the resource guides. o Our resource collection gives users a private and accessible way to inform themselves about their own health or learn about disabilities. o We created a table of contents guide, pictured to the left, so that users could see a comprehensive list of the guides that were created. o Disabilities can often be experienced together. We wanted to provide users with guide that we could try to replicate as much as possible the complexity of disabilities. o Williams and Deyoe (2014) created a disability collection checklist from the Schneider Family Book Award and Disabilities and Disorders in Literature for Youth (Crosetto et al., 2009) and found that out of 5,002 libraries only carried 45.7 titles from the 334 titles on average. o The creation of this set of research guides revealed gaps in the libraries collection of resources on disabilities. o Coverage at U of I was usually dependent on the prevalence/popularity of a given disability. o Adult popular literature/fiction was lacking across the spectrum of disabilities. o Hee-Yoon and Sin-Young (2016) suggest creating policies that include collection development of materials on disability. o These guides are unique because they provide a centralized location for materials on common disabilities. o Some guides were altered due to the lack of material. For example, Body Dysmorphic Disorder does not have a popular literature tab due to the scant resources that fall under that category. o We made sure to follow accessibility guidelines during the creation of the resource guides. o In order to hear the voices of the community we are trying to reach, we created a feedback form that is featured on all of the guides. o Outreach to underrepresented communities is essential in maintaining a resource that is human centered and ethical. o Elturk (2003) notes that without trying to become culturally competent, attempts at diversity and outreach are shallow. The first step in cultural competency is acknowledging we don't know enough about other cultures. The second step is seeking knowledge from authentic sources. o We hope to use this framework to reach out to the community of people who are disabled or who are affected by a disability.