PDA: Comfortable Access to Library Buildings by Users and Staff with Disabilities: Going Beyond the Americans with Disabilities Act Minimums (section 3)

SCELC partners with peer library consortia around the country to form the Professional Development Alliance (PDA)! The PDA is dedicated to sharing our professional development opportunities with other alliance members. This new initiative multiplies the number and variety of online professional development opportunities available to the member libraries of each participating consortium. PDA webinars are freely available to librarians and staff at all SCELC Member and Affiliate Institutions.

Session Details:

Despite the Americans with Disabilities Act and relevant state building codes, many library buildings fail to deal with a range of everyday disabilities among users and staff.

Some libraries were constructed before the ADA was first passed in 1990 and have not been required to conform with the act. A few more recent libraries have simply ignored aspects of the ADA.

In addition, many everyday disabilities are not covered by legislation or building codes and are often ignored in building planning.

This program will review accessibility options and some possible solutions. Although by far the best time to deal with accessibility issues is before design and construction begin, many things can be done later.

Presenter Fred Schlipf will review issues and problems in library building accessibility, with a variety of possible solutions. Attendees are also welcome to describe accessibility problems at their libraries and what they have done to deal with them, or simply to raise accessibility issues for discussion with the group attending. Registrants are invited to send accessibility questions or issues with photos in advance to support@carli.illinois.edu. Please send your questions for Fred Schlipf by July 13.

Fred Schlipf is coauthor of The Practical Handbook of Library Architecture: Creating Building Spaces that Work. He has consulted on about 200 library construction projects and has visited library buildings at every opportunity. He has been an adjunct professor at the School of Information Sciences at the University of Illinois since 1970, where he specializes in practical issues in library architecture, and he was director of The Urbana Free Library from 1974 through 2007. He has a PhD from the Graduate Library School of the University of Chicago.