Universal Accessibility Interest Group

Hello all,

We discussed this some at the UAIG meeting in San Diego, but I also wanted to open this up to the broader group. I'm working with a team in partnership with our accessibility office to create an accessibility training for our libraries' staff. 

Our broad outline plans to cover: 

• Introduction 

  • Why accessibility matters to our users

  • Accessibility laws 

  • University Policy

• Resources in the University 

• Accessible library services - resources and initiatives in the Libraries

• Hosting an accessible event

• Working at a public service point

  • Disability etiquette resources

• Disability culture and community

• Where to learn more

So our question for the group: Do you have similar trainings? If so, what types of information do you include for staff? Are we missing anything important?

Thank you all for your ideas!

Hello all,

We discussed this some at the UAIG meeting in San Diego, but I also wanted to open this up to the broader group. I'm working with a team in partnership with our accessibility office to create an accessibility training for our libraries' staff. 

Our broad outline plans to cover: 

• Introduction 

  • Why accessibility matters to our users

  • Accessibility laws 

  • University Policy

• Resources in the University 

• Accessible library services - resources and initiatives in the Libraries

• Hosting an accessible event

• Working at a public service point

  • Disability etiquette resources

• Disability culture and community

• Where to learn more

So our question for the group: Do you have similar trainings? If so, what types of information do you include for staff? Are we missing anything important?

Thank you all for your ideas!

Hello all,

We discussed this some at the UAIG meeting in San Diego, but I also wanted to open this up to the broader group. I'm working with a team in partnership with our accessibility office to create an accessibility training for our libraries' staff. 

Our broad outline plans to cover: 

• Introduction 

  • Why accessibility matters to our users

  • Accessibility laws 

  • University Policy

• Resources in the University 

• Accessible library services - resources and initiatives in the Libraries

• Hosting an accessible event

• Working at a public service point

  • Disability etiquette resources

• Disability culture and community

• Where to learn more

So our question for the group: Do you have similar trainings? If so, what types of information do you include for staff? Are we missing anything important?

Thank you all for your ideas!

------------------------------
Katie Gibson
Humanities & Area Studies Librarian
Miami University King Library
------------------------------

Great question Kate!

I maintain a libguide for internal library staff at Northeastern. I call it the accessibility hub, I like this format- it's easy to update and bookmark. I can link out to free resources and documents that require authentication through our systems. 

I'm also currently offering a discussion group based around Kodi Laskin's Serving Patrons with Disabilities. I've broken the small book into three sections, and we read the section prior to a guided discussion. I'm happy to share my slides and further reading list with anyone who is interested. 

------------------------------
Anaya Jones She/Her/Hers
___
Accessibility & Online Learning Librarian
Northeastern University

Original Message:
Sent: Jul 25, 2024 08:17 AM
From: Katie Gibson
Subject: Library staff training

Hello all,

We discussed this some at the UAIG meeting in San Diego, but I also wanted to open this up to the broader group. I'm working with a team in partnership with our accessibility office to create an accessibility training for our libraries' staff. 

Our broad outline plans to cover: 

• Introduction 

  • Why accessibility matters to our users

  • Accessibility laws 

  • University Policy

• Resources in the University 

• Accessible library services - resources and initiatives in the Libraries

• Hosting an accessible event

• Working at a public service point

  • Disability etiquette resources

• Disability culture and community

• Where to learn more

So our question for the group: Do you have similar trainings? If so, what types of information do you include for staff? Are we missing anything important?

Thank you all for your ideas!

------------------------------
Katie Gibson
Humanities & Area Studies Librarian
Miami University King Library
------------------------------

Hello all,

We discussed this some at the UAIG meeting in San Diego, but I also wanted to open this up to the broader group. I'm working with a team in partnership with our accessibility office to create an accessibility training for our libraries' staff. 

Our broad outline plans to cover: 

• Introduction 

  • Why accessibility matters to our users

  • Accessibility laws 

  • University Policy

• Resources in the University 

• Accessible library services - resources and initiatives in the Libraries

• Hosting an accessible event

• Working at a public service point

  • Disability etiquette resources

• Disability culture and community

• Where to learn more

So our question for the group: Do you have similar trainings? If so, what types of information do you include for staff? Are we missing anything important?

Thank you all for your ideas!

We don't currently have formal accessibility training for library staff, but our campus has a Digital Accessibility microcredential that any staff can take (hosted by the Center for eLearning and Connected Environments). I would like to develop something a little simpler specifically for library staff, but I have some other projects I need to finish first. I love the idea of a dedicated LibGuide to point people to--I will probably try to create something like that, as well.

I do think that having some sort of multi-session training program is more ideal than trying to fit everything into a one-shot class. It's a lot to cover, and I think a lot of folks don't take the time to explore concepts fully if they are not guided to do so. I know lots of people who have a desire to learn more about accessibility, but they feel intimidated by how much there is to learn. Giving folks the information in small pieces over time helps mitigate that.

One thing I love about our microcredential is that it includes opportunities for hands-on training--introducing people to specific accessibility tools and then giving them a chance to try them out. Those sessions were the most impactful for me because they helped me identify tools I could incorporate into my existing workflows (like Colour Contrast Analyzer). 

Hello all,

We discussed this some at the UAIG meeting in San Diego, but I also wanted to open this up to the broader group. I'm working with a team in partnership with our accessibility office to create an accessibility training for our libraries' staff. 

Our broad outline plans to cover: 

• Introduction 

  • Why accessibility matters to our users

  • Accessibility laws 

  • University Policy

• Resources in the University 

• Accessible library services - resources and initiatives in the Libraries

• Hosting an accessible event

• Working at a public service point

  • Disability etiquette resources

• Disability culture and community

• Where to learn more

So our question for the group: Do you have similar trainings? If so, what types of information do you include for staff? Are we missing anything important?

Thank you all for your ideas!

Hello all,

We discussed this some at the UAIG meeting in San Diego, but I also wanted to open this up to the broader group. I'm working with a team in partnership with our accessibility office to create an accessibility training for our libraries' staff. 

Our broad outline plans to cover: 

• Introduction 

  • Why accessibility matters to our users

  • Accessibility laws 

  • University Policy

• Resources in the University 

• Accessible library services - resources and initiatives in the Libraries

• Hosting an accessible event

• Working at a public service point

  • Disability etiquette resources

• Disability culture and community

• Where to learn more

So our question for the group: Do you have similar trainings? If so, what types of information do you include for staff? Are we missing anything important?

Thank you all for your ideas!

Hi everyone!

Sorry to be late to the game. I've been out on a much needed vacation.

I am really excited about this discussion! Katya - I would love to see the documentation that you created. Can you please send it and is it okay if I share it with my colleagues here who work directly with faculty?  Anaya - I love the LibGuide! 

We don't provide any library-specific training , but our University has a group called the Digital Accessibility Liaisons, which has membership from throughout the institution. The Liaisons meet monthly and meetings are open to anyone at the institution. Each meeting provides some sort of training or an overview of an accessibility tool. Past topics have included things like, best practices for image alt text and how to use JAWS.  Additionally, the Liaisons have a Slack channel where anyone can post questions and we often share links to webinars and resources. It is a great resource.

This discussion also reminded me of a project I did back in 2022 for my graduate certificate in Disability Studies. I wrote a project plan for what I called the "Library Accessibility Resource Hub" that was going to be a website that brought together and organized accessibility resources for library workers. Unfortunately, I did not have the time or resources to actually build the hub (maybe some day!). While doing to research, I found several training modules that had been developed by different institutions. Some appear to no longer be available, but here are some that are: 

• Project Enable from Syracuse, offers free, self-paced training focused on libraries. They also provide Train the Trainer resources for those who wish to conduct workshops with their library.
• AccessAbility Academy from RUSA is designed to teach library staff to interact with people with disabilities.  This resource is not free. Cost is based on the number of participants.
• Disability and Libraries Toolkit from CEDI@UMD. This was not in my original project - I only found it this morning.

I'm happy to share my project plan with anyone who is interested. It includes an infographic I created called "10 Reasons Why Academic Libraries Need to Focus on Accessibility".

Karen

Hello all,

We discussed this some at the UAIG meeting in San Diego, but I also wanted to open this up to the broader group. I'm working with a team in partnership with our accessibility office to create an accessibility training for our libraries' staff. 

Our broad outline plans to cover: 

• Introduction 

  • Why accessibility matters to our users

  • Accessibility laws 

  • University Policy

• Resources in the University 

• Accessible library services - resources and initiatives in the Libraries

• Hosting an accessible event

• Working at a public service point

  • Disability etiquette resources

• Disability culture and community

• Where to learn more

So our question for the group: Do you have similar trainings? If so, what types of information do you include for staff? Are we missing anything important?

Thank you all for your ideas!

Hello all,

We discussed this some at the UAIG meeting in San Diego, but I also wanted to open this up to the broader group. I'm working with a team in partnership with our accessibility office to create an accessibility training for our libraries' staff. 

Our broad outline plans to cover: 

• Introduction 

  • Why accessibility matters to our users

  • Accessibility laws 

  • University Policy

• Resources in the University 

• Accessible library services - resources and initiatives in the Libraries

• Hosting an accessible event

• Working at a public service point

  • Disability etiquette resources

• Disability culture and community

• Where to learn more

So our question for the group: Do you have similar trainings? If so, what types of information do you include for staff? Are we missing anything important?

Thank you all for your ideas!

Hello all,

We discussed this some at the UAIG meeting in San Diego, but I also wanted to open this up to the broader group. I'm working with a team in partnership with our accessibility office to create an accessibility training for our libraries' staff. 

Our broad outline plans to cover: 

• Introduction 

  • Why accessibility matters to our users

  • Accessibility laws 

  • University Policy

• Resources in the University 

• Accessible library services - resources and initiatives in the Libraries

• Hosting an accessible event

• Working at a public service point

  • Disability etiquette resources

• Disability culture and community

• Where to learn more

So our question for the group: Do you have similar trainings? If so, what types of information do you include for staff? Are we missing anything important?

Thank you all for your ideas!

My library has benefited from the work done by some of our campus groups. One campus group I belong to, the Workgroup on Accessibility Practices, has several faculty and staff members. They have come to our all-personnel meetings a few times to discuss digital accessibility. They also do regular informal trainings on a variety of accessibility-related topics, during our university's "breakout sessions." The breakout sessions are hosted by our Center for Excellence in Learning & Teaching before and after every spring semester. The sessions are conducted by faculty & staff, for faculty & staff.  (Here's a list of all sessions from this past spring, if you'd like to see what kind of sessions we offer.)

I work at SUNY Oswego, and SUNY currently pays for a subscription to Deque University. We've asked all library personnel to take their course on customer service for people with disabilities. 

I plan to do sort of a combination professional development session with my librarian colleagues soon. One will be on some assistive technology that we were recently gifted, and the other will focus on assistive features in our databases. 

Hello all,

We discussed this some at the UAIG meeting in San Diego, but I also wanted to open this up to the broader group. I'm working with a team in partnership with our accessibility office to create an accessibility training for our libraries' staff. 

Our broad outline plans to cover: 

• Introduction 

  • Why accessibility matters to our users

  • Accessibility laws 

  • University Policy

• Resources in the University 

• Accessible library services - resources and initiatives in the Libraries

• Hosting an accessible event

• Working at a public service point

  • Disability etiquette resources

• Disability culture and community

• Where to learn more

So our question for the group: Do you have similar trainings? If so, what types of information do you include for staff? Are we missing anything important?

Thank you all for your ideas!