Karen M. Drabenstott
Associate Professor
School of Information
University of Michigan
Ann Arbor, MI 48109-1092 USA
Voice: (734) 763-3581
Fax: (734) 764-2475
karen.drabenstott@umich.edu
Many thanks to Anne Abate and her University of Kentucky students for giving us the opportunity to bring to light current issues in the field and find out what issues students think are most important and pressing. This was an interesting departure from our usual format and perhaps other educators could consider hosting class discussions through CRISTAL-ED. Thanks, Anne, and good luck to your enterprising students.
Let's turn to a new topic -- one which we've have not discussed in CRISTAL-ED's lifetime -- "Accessible for All? New Information Technologies, Libraries, and Users with Disabilities." Robert Helfer will serve as our guest editor. Robert's first library job was attaching bar-code labels on books for the University of Chicago Library's then-brand new automated circulation system in 1974. Since then, he has worked variously as a cataloger and as a programmer on two library automation projects. Since 1989, he has been developing an automated system for the Talking Book Program of the Texas State Library and Archives Commission. He holds an MA from the Graduate Library School at the University of Chicago and a Ph.D. from the Graduate School of Library and Information Science at the University of Texas at Austin.
Please welcome our new guest editor Robert Helfer and join the discussion.
Robert S. Helfer
Texas State Library and Archives Commission Talking Book Program
1201 Brazos Street
Box 12927
Austin, Texas 78711-2927
Voice: (512) 463-5402
Fax: (512) 463-5436
robert@tsl.state.tx.us
Historically, library services have been accessible in a fixed location and have focused on print materials. Such accessibility has limits -- people who have physical disabilities or live in remote areas may not be able to go to the library, those who are blind or visually handicapped may not be able to use the materials the library holds. When we have recognized these limits, librarians have tended to provide specialized services: bookmobiles, outreach services, and books-by-mail programs distribute the library's location, and "talking books" and Braille libraries have been established for those who cannot read standard print.
But over the past decade computers and information networks have changed everything. We no longer need to go to a library to examine its catalog, or even to use its books. We can search the holdings of most of the world's great libraries without leaving our own homes, and in many cases the actual texts of books, journals, or archives are similarly available, or at least can be requested through interlibrary loan services. Blind and visually handicapped readers have access to an increasing number of "reading machines" that can convert printed text to spoken words and screen readers that will read aloud online books from the Internet or computer disks; books on tape, increasingly popular among the general population, can be purchased in any bookstore, borrowed from the public library, or rented from specialty stores.
What do such developments mean for the populations libraries have traditionally given specialized services, and for the librarians who have been providing such services?
These questions are not asked in a vacuum. Specialized services, such as that coordinated by the National Library Service for the Blind and Physically Handicapped in the United States, are expensive. In a time of continuing budget reductions we must consider whether these services provide for a real need or if they are merely redundant.
You may join the discussion and look over the list of past and future topics.
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