MICHELLE FARRELL: Hello, everyone, I'm Michele Farrell.
We're here in this half hour period to talk about celebrating the Americans with Disabilities
Act.
This year is the 25th anniversary of ADA.
And libraries have been providing services for a long time to that clientele and I thought
it was a good idea, if IMLS did that.
For those of you who are here in the back of the room, one of our national medal winners,
the Braille Institute has set up a display of assistive technologies that they make available
to people in the community that need it.
And what we're going to do now is just do an interview with one of our colleagues and
grantees, but first I'd like to give you an idea why we think this is important.
Right now, we estimate there's 43 million people with disabilities.
Now, here's something to think about.
In this day and age of big data, we only have estimates on the number of people with disabilities.
Rather interesting, but here's another fact.
In the next 15 years, by 2030, there's going to be 75 million people over 65 and they estimate
that almost 40, I've got the number here wrong, about half of those people are going to be
people with disabilities and need assistance.
So, if you're talking about planning an assessment, we talked about it earlier, it's definitely
something to look at and plan for in your communities.
And today, I have Dr. Lisa Wadors Verne here to have a conversation about this.
She's the program manager for education research and partnership at Benetech Labs.
It's global literacy services includes book share and diagram.
She's also one of our grantees.
She's the project lead on a project called 3D Printing, New Educational Opportunities
for Students with Print Disabilities.
She's also a project lead on a private grant that supports parents for children with learning
differences.
She's a doctorate in Special Education and policy from the University of California at
Berkeley and San Francisco State University.
It's a joint doctoral program with a focus on teacher's beliefs about including children
with special needs in typicallydeveloping classrooms.
She has 15 years of research in the educational area, with particular expertise in Special
Education policy and law, inclusion and family.
And schooled collaboration.
She's currently interested in the use of technology in classrooms for meaningful inclusion.
In addition to her position at Benetech, I don't know when this woman sleeps, she's a
guest lecturer, adjunct faculty member and student supervisor at San Francisco State
University.
She holds a BS in business administration and marketing and an MA in Early Childhood
Special Education from Santa Clara university.
So welcome.
>> Thank you for having me.
>> The actual date is July 26th, but our hope is that people will celebrate it throughout
the year.
This year, with it marking the 25th anniversary: You talk broadly about the scope of ADA?
What it covers and where we are now?
>> Sure, so the Americans with Disabilities Act is a Civil Rights law.
It prohibits distribution based on disability.
It includes physical and mental disabilities.
And it's similar to the premeditations from the 1964 Civil Rights laws.
And although the law was enacted in 1990, we started thinking about disability rights
way before that.
Okay, in the early 70s, so not that early, but...you know, so most of our lifetime, people
with disabilities weren't protected or didn't have the same rights and protections that
all other citizens in the United States had.
And the first version was introduced to the House and Senate in 1988, but wasn't passed
until 1990.
Recently retired Senator Harkin wrote the final version for the 1990 pass and approval.
When he delivered his speech to the House to talk about why this was important and why
we needed to vote on rights for people with disabilities, he actually presented most of
the presentation in sign language so that his brother could hear as well.
One of the big differences though, between the Civil Rights Act of 1964 and ADA of 1990,
is that we look at accommodations and what employers need to provide to their employees,
but also, what accessibility requirements are required on public entities and public
accommodations.
So, as librarians and libraries, what are the things that we need to think about that
need to be available?
And what accommodations do we need to make to support people with disability in your
institutions?
When we talk about accommodations, we're talking about reasonable accommodations.
That could be special equipment, it could be different times to schedule meetings, it
could also be how we communicate information to people.
What I found when I was doing some research on ADA and what I thought was a pretty interesting
statement was when we look at accommodations for people with disabilities, about 57% of
those accommodations are free.
Little things we can do to, to make you know, access to the information just a little easier.
So we're not looking at things that are going to cost hundreds and millions, thousands of
dollars, we're looking at things that could be minor changes that could be free.
We are you know, employers are not required to provide accommodations that are significantly
difficult or expensive, either.
But we need to think about what are the things, again, that we can do.
Public entities must comply with these and these regulations cover access to all the
programs and services that public entities provide or that they provide out to the people.
>> Well, I, when I think back to, as part of my grant monitoring, I go to many libraries
and noticed that people develop websites and they list that they provide services to people
who need assistive devices, but broadly speaking, do you see any other progress and examples
of progress that you see in the field or changes broadly speaking in services to this community?
>> Sure, well the biggest thing is that it's no longer a charitable act to provide accommodations
for someone with a disability.
It is the law.
When we talk about websites specifically, oftentimes information for people with disabilities
is way down on the bottom or hitting on a few different pages.
Bringing some of that information to the forefront is really important, but also how the website
is designed to work with accommodations, to work with screen readers, for people with
visual impairments or learning disabilities, it's important to figure out how we communicate
this information.
So...anything, any structure that's, that has been built since 1992 is required to be
ADAcompliant.
And anything else built before 1992, people have to work to get rid of the barriers that
would prohibit someone from accessing information or access into a building.
Some of those things are like ramps, elevators, library stacks have to be certain dimensions,
but to answer your question, although we've made progress in 25 years, there's more work
that needs to be done in the next 25 years.
One thing is ADA is not education law, it's a Civil Rights law.
Schools very much, if you look at the structure of schools, are very segregated by having
kids in Special Ed in their own programming.
We need to focus more on people's abilities and less on their disability and how we can
support them to be successful.
One of the things I hear too, how do we talk to someone with a disability?
How do we address someone with a disability?
It's personfirst language.
When you think about a person with a disability.
They are a person, and not their disability.
There are some exceptions, but for the majority, you know, personfirst language, thinking about
a person with a disability.
A person who is blind.
A person with a learning difference.
They are definitely a person first and a disability second.
>> Well, it's interesting, when I was looking up some information, and I read that, 13 million
people use assistive devices, I keep thinking, that'd be about 1/4 of my friends and there's
me rising the volume on my SmartPhone and widening the screen to see a picture and just
facing reality there.
That's why I know so well, things that you never think is coming is actually coming to
a library near you.
And what I enjoy discussing with Lisa, as we talked earlier, is talking outside our
field and talking to partners, Special Ed teachers, any other service organizations
for the blind and the deaf, et cetera.
Even if you're a small library somewhere, as well as professional associations.
How do you think we could be more inclusive in terms
of technology?
>> Some of the accommodations and things that have been built into technology products,
many of you use on a regular basis.
How many of you listen to books at all?
Or maybe use your iPhone?
Or your cell phones?
How many use the magnifying feature on your cell phone?
>> All the time.
>> Right?
These are things that companies are now putting into place that are not just for people with
disability, but for all people.
And I think that's something to think about.
When we think about technology and think about the things we need to change and want to improve,
you know, while, while having someone with a disability in mind is important, there are
so many other people in the world that could benefit from some of the upgrades and technological
enhancements that many of us use.
I had to explain to my husband how he can make things bigger.
He doesn't have a disability, he's just old.
As I am too, I'll be fair.
So, but many of you are already doing some of these things.
As I talked about putting in ramps into buildings, have computer desks that are accessible for
someone in a wheelchair.
We see that, we see a lot of this happening.
While not Americans with Disabilities Act, [indiscernible] ensures that electronic information
and technology, that we buy, that we develop or maintain, must be accessible.
And so, one of the things I wanted to talk to you about today and one of the things we
can think about doing is buying things that are accessible.
How many of you have digital books or use digital books for people you work with?
I see head shaking, right?
Are all those digital books accessible?
Ooh...head shaking stopped.
I'm thinking there's some questions.
The answer is no.
We're working with a number of publishers on an initiative where things are called accessible.
We want it created in an accessible format to start.
It's about 800 times more expensive to convert digital file back into an accessible digital
file.
If you can create those things in advance, then we won't have to do any retrofitting.
And then buying accessible.
So understanding what products are accessible to begin with.
And I'm not going to go through it today, but I have a chart that I'm more than willing
to share if no one's interested.
The text is available in a logical reading order.
Also, that tables and headers have captions.
For persons with visual impairments or people who may not be able to actually read the text
on a page, oftentimes images are inaccessible.
When we think about things like math and science, everything's embedded in those images.
Screen readers aren't even reading them.
We want to make sure we're purchasing things that have, that have you know, descriptions,
image descriptions.
And as you mentioned, diagram is one of our initiatives that we work on.
The diagram center, which is about accessible images, has a product called Poet.
This is something more for publishers, we do a lot of work with publishers to actually
put in descriptions of the images you see.
Long descriptions, now the funny little T that starts the the in the first sentence,
that doesn't need an image description, but when we think about a complex image of the
water cycle, we can have someone talk about and describe what is going on in that picture,
gives access to the people reading the books or accessing the books in various ways.
>> It is interesting, I recently went to hackathon sponsored by the Department of Commerce.
It was specifically designed for hackers to work with people who have disabilities to
bring those communities together to try to design new equipment, devices and software.
So...I mean, everybody's thinking about this, it's, you know, it's not a segmented kind
of thing, it's broad.
And speaking about that, are there other issues in terms of accessibilitywise that other sectors
are changing or making that we can learn from?
>> Well, I think the example of your iPhone, many of you have one, I saw all the heads
nodding.
It shows an example that it's someone who is out of education and out of the book publishing,
although they have their own section of that too who are doing work to think about how
do we put accessible functionality into things that we're using?
You know, we're, we're at a really great and crucial moment here, waive perfect storm of
conditions, we have a great need, as you pointed out there, are quite a few million people
with disabilities.
We have a great opportunity, technology is changing things so fast that oftentimes, you
know, I get up to speak and something's changed and I have to revamp real quick.
There's an explosion for funding for new technologies.
So bringing all of these things together, it's time to now create the social tipping
point that content creation and making things that are accessible happen now, rather than
like I said, in retrospect.
So, I did already mention that we're working with publishers quite a bit, through our Born
Accessible Initiative, but there are things that people are working on.
I'll talk about projects we have right now.
As you mentioned, book share, book share's an online digital platform of accessible materials.
For students in K12, postsecondary, degreeearning positions from a grant from the department
of Special Education programming, we're able to offer that free.
If you think about someone who has trouble reading, think about reading a traditional
book, you have to hold the book, you have to be able to turn the page, see the words
and decode the words.
If at some point that is not happening, that person is not accessing the material in the
book.
So book share provides opportunities to have accessible digital material for them at their
disposal.
As you mentioned also, we're working on a grant on 3D printing for education.
We know people learn things in many different ways.
How many have 3D printers?
We're looking at that right now.
In two weeks, we're pulling together a national consortium of people for a forum, educators,
libraries, museums, end users and technologists to talk about the implications for 3D printing
in the classroom, to figure out who should be printing, and why and for whom? Someone
with a visual impairment may learn differently than some with a learning disability.
We have to have different ways to convey that information to them.
We have to build a pedagogy around different objects.
We see libraries as being one of those places where they could be a great asset in this
field.
Because, as you, as some of you had already indicated, you're thinking about this already,
but how do we connect you to the right people?
How do teachers know what you have or what they can get from you?
We'll have a report later this year that will sum up our findings two weeks from now.
If anybody is interested in learning about that faster or sooner, my information is on
the contact sheet.
I also mentioned Poet, the image description tool that we're working with.
We're also working on something called Math ML Cloud.
People aren't able to access the formulas that they need to be successful and to go
on.
Math ML Cloud.
You know, and a dream of mine in looking towards the future, far down the road, how great would
it be to have all those things I just mentioned in a book?
So that someone who has a digital version of that book can click on the math equation
that we'll read to them in a format that works.
Or someone can click on, I want to order this object from wherever or I want to print this
object.
There's tons of work being done and it's only going to grow.
>> There are libraries doing it.
As I mentioned earlier, when I do my site visits to monitor what's going on, a grant
to one of the state libraries, I go on the road and see some of the libraries and safe
harbor in Florida, does a great job of working with people who are deaf and I went there
and saw book talks, et cetera, and sign language, Spanish and English and working with different
communities.
I was really amazed by the work that was being done in Colorado.
A technology fellow was very willing to work with the public library to develop robots,
that's his goal, but to work with children who have autism or on the spectrum and you
know, this is out there.
There are people willing to work with libraries, so...for those of you who are listening in
on the streaming, please tell us what you're doing to celebrate ADA and how you're involved
in providing services and I think now we'll take some questions if anybody has any?
Whether you're online?
Whoo!
Got a few.
Great.
>> Exciting.
>> Hello, I'm Steve Reader from Portland, Oregon.
I have a question for the panelists or possibly for the library community in this room or
listening in online.
That is, I want to try to connect a couple dots that Lisa mentioned.
One dot being we should buy accessible you know, books.
Sounds like a great idea.
And the other thing she said was students in, she has funding for students in K12 who
need accessible books, you know, to get them for no cost.
My question is, are libraries buying accessible books to make available to adults with disabilities
who knees these products?
Is that happening fast enough?
Do we need to think about ways of doing that?
I don't know the answer to that, but I think people listening may.
>> I think that's a good question.
I think what your question brings up is how much more we need to share what we're doing
with the community.
I'm very pleased with this focused meetings, we get to give grants out.
We go to ALA and talk about work we're doing.
Her grant on 3D printing and students who have needs and need assistive devices, et
cetera.
But I don't think we really are thinking about, we have some sections of our professional
associations that specifically pull together information.
But we need to do a lot more of that sharing to understand, yeah, we're doing it, because
I'll tell you, I wouldn't know it unless I went on the road and saw in many cases.
We keep our lights under a barrel, especially for this kind of thing.
We spend a lot of money providing, talking book services, and it's a wellkept secret.
While I'm on that topic, the National Library Service is doing a PR thing about their service,
so contact them as well, because, they will have materials or at least give you a lot
more information if you want to put things forward to those listening in and also the
ADA network has a toolkit to help you celebrate the ADA anniversary and I think it's a good
time for people to evaluate what they're doing.
So, I don't have an answer, but you bring up a good question about what can we do to
find out more about what is going on in our field.
Can we take another question.
>> Real quick, if you don't mind, one other thing is partnerships.
There are a number of organizations like IMLS, book share, that have services, establishing
partnerships and getting partnerships together could be something we need to explore.
How do we support the libraries that you know, may, you know, may not be doing the retrofitting
themselves, but working with someone who is retrofitting things.
>> Hi, I'm Julie Walker, the state librarian in Georgia.
I wanted to comment quickly on something we've done in Georgia and Lisa said earlier, these
services shouldn't be hidden.
What we realized, we had some very invested libraries who served as our subregionals who
were doing great work and the rest of our libraries felt like they're handling it, it's
fine, we decided we wanted every library in the state of Georgia to be providing accessible
services, so we just held our first accessible services boot camp in Georgia where we used
some of our federal money to put on a statewide, three to fourday boot camp where representatives
from every library in the state came and learned all the vast amount of information that they
needed to betterserve our patrons with disabilities of all kinds.
And it was tremendously successful and so eyeopening for some of these libraries that
felt like they could leave that to someone else, now we realized it's everyone's responsibility
and it's everyone's task to serve these patrons and to serve them well and to make sure they
get to the services they need.
So that's something that we really feel like our federal money was wellspent to spread
that word in Georgia.
>> Thank you.
>> I just wanted to, James [indiscernible], the Association of Specialized Cooperative
Libraries did a training in Honolulu, that were amazed by it.
I'd highly recommend taking a look at those materials
as well.