Creating Inclusive Library Environments: A Planning Guide for Serving Patrons with Disabilities

Our goal with this book is to create a multi-library, foundational resource on disabilities services and advocacy in libraries. It will serve as a guide for planning for all types of disabilities services and resources, including facilities, programming, reference and instruction, technologies, and collaborations. Librarians are continually faced with challenges of how to best meet the needs of disabled patrons, whether those patrons have physical or intellectual disabilities, differing learning styles, or even temporary problems which impact their access and may change over time. Specifically, librarians need a guide to the types of things to look out for, lists of issues which can be fixed quickly and easily, and a strategy for planning for more long-term changes which need to take place in policies, technologies, and organizational culture.We believe that much of the information available on these topics is scattered, and does not always include applications to libraries in the ways that are needed for action. Our book will gather all of the salient information in one place -- from research-based best practices to learning materials to improve individual and organizational competencies -- while providing both a readable journey and a foundational reference. In other words, we want to produce a guide on those disabilities topics which (as far as we can tell by the huge numbers of attendees at disabilities programs and workshops at ALA!) “inquiring minds want to know.” Our focus will be on explaining how libraries can upgrade facilities, programs, outreach efforts, and collections, as well as the many ways that librarians can help increase disabilities awareness of library staff, patrons, and students of all ages.