Accommodative Services

Accommodating Students with Disabilities
A Roundtable Discussion
SSHELCO Annual Meeting, March 31, 2005

Outline of Discussion

Welcome by Linda Neyer (Bloom)
Linda thanked everyone for coming. She introduced herself as the moderator for the session and introduced her colleagues from Bloomsburg (David Magolis, Darla Bressler, and Katie Yelinek). She said the purpose of the session was to explore several factors relating to accommodative services in the library in order for us to better serve our patrons. It’s essentially a focus group, and she expects the group to raise more questions than it answers.

Introductions:
Linda Neyer (Bloom) invited everyone to introduce themselves and to say a little bit about accommodative services within their libraries.

Leo Shelley (Millersville) indicated that one problem at Millersville was the physical layout of the building and also handicapped parking, which necessitated giving out a password to allow access to the building through a locked door. He also spoke about computer accommodations for students with physical challenges.

Katie Yelinek (Bloom) is the coordinator for government documents at Bloomsburg. She was interested in some of the legal requirements that the government has put in place for accommodative services for students, particularly in terms of web page accessibility.

Bob Flatley (Kutztown) was there to speak on behalf of the library technician Joanne Bucks. Kutztown is unique in that it already has an assistive technology center in the library. He passed around handouts about the center. He referred questions about the building and the new ADA-compliant addition to his dean, Peggy Devlin, who was also in attendance. He indicated that the assistive technology center has three computers and a lot of equipment such as Zoomtext, JAWS, OpenBook, Reading Edge, a talking calculator, TTY phone, microfilm reader, and scanner that interacts with the equipment. He said that this was a library initiative that began in 1991 with a Reading Edge machine at Joanne’s desk. The center is open to any student; it does not require enrollment.

Phil Zorich (IUP) has been at IUP for a number of years, but he’s new to the assistive dean position. He says that IUP has a disabilities support center, but the library is only marginally associated with it. He hopes to take greater advantage of their services in the future.

Don Dilmore (Edinboro) says that when he first came to campus he noticed a room for visual equipment in the library. He talked with the vice president of student affairs, who said that the library didn’t need to do anything because there was an office on campus to take care of student needs. His challenge since then has been to focus on ensuring that the library continues to serve students with disabilities. He acknowledges that Edinboro is kind of the de facto campus for students with certain physical disabilities.

Marilyn Stempeck (Clarion) says one of her co-workers is on the presidential commission for disabilities at the university, and she is filling in for this person. She recounted an experience in which she taught cataloging to an intern [with a visual disability], and they had to adapt a lot of the cataloging material so she could learn to do so.

Clayton Garthwait (West Chester) is an access services librarian. He is an active member of the ADA Task Force. He has been working closely with their OSSD; in fact there is a little branch office in the library. This has brought more students into the library, but it has actually decreased demand for library staff to provide assistance. There is a very active OSSD department on campus. They have been very appreciative of whatever the library has done in the past, such as scanning material using OCR software. They have a room with things like JAWS and scanning apparatus.
Linda Neyer asked what JAWS was. Bob Flatley replied that it was screen magnification software with a reader component. The program speaks on all screen text.

Sue Czerny (Kutztown) is the access services librarian. While Bob Flatley deals a lot with the assistive technology center, she deals more with people with mobility impairments and mental disabilities.

Amber Johnson (Mansfield) is a reference librarian. She indicated that Mansfield does have a center on campus and students with special needs go mostly through them. The library does have software for its computers. Mansfield also has a staff member who is hearing impaired, and she helps a lot in raising sensitivity issues.

Darla Bressler (Bloom) said that the people at Bloomsburg became interested in this issue when they were approached at the reference desk by a student asking for help with some assistive technology equipment. It soon became apparent that there was a lack of knowledge about what was available in the library or how to use it. There is an office for accommodative services on campus.

Phil Tramdeck (Director—Slippery Rock) has a room in the library with software and equipment. He mentioned that it was important to talk about serving patrons with disabilities, not just students with disabilities, because we have community members who use the libraries as well. He also reflected on the question of what do we mean by disabilities? It is easier to identify those who are mobility impaired, or hearing impaired, but there are other types of impairments as well. The university office for those with disabilities is in the library at Slippery Rock, ironically because it was once perceived that the library had extra space. Having the office in the library has allowed him to realize how little is being done to address the issues of people with disabilities.

Carol Otto (California) is the systems administrator. She doesn’t see a lot of people with disabilities coming into the library, so there is a lot of outdated equipment. She said that there is an office on campus for students with disabilities.

Barbara Sabo (California) is the circulation coordinator. She has come to learn.

Chris Troutman (Edinboro) works with serials at Edinboro and spends time at the reference desk. She confirms there are a lot of students with disabilities on her campus, so she has also come to learn.

Peggy Devlin (Director—Kutztown) is dean of library services. She has, next to Edinboro, a lot of students with disabilities, particularly learning disabilities. So, in addition to the equipment that Bob Flatley mentioned, they provide testing services and quiet study spaces as well as mentoring. They did have a Braille clock that got stolen. They buy books on tape and large print books. They work closely with the office for ADA services and keep their equipment up to date. In the Mac lab, they have an additional Mac computer with equipment. They do formal training in the library—often focusing on teachnology as well as on disabilities. They have the ADA people speak; once a student with MS spoke, so there is sensitivity training. When they did the renovation project, it was realized that it would be too expensive to spread all the stacks out, so they created an ADA-compliant service policy. There is an ADA task force and a commission on human diversity, and library staff members serve on both. There were complaints that their assistive technology center was too sterile, so posters were put up.
Linda Neyer asked how much use the assistive technology center gets.
Peggy Devlin answered that the room gets lots of use. The international students will use the equipment to learn English. They don’t like the voices that come with the software, though. The visually impaired students are in there all the time. Their dogs have become almost like pets in the building. The learning disabled students also use the library a lot. The goal is to make the library comfortable to use. They have about 500 identified students with disabilities on campus. Learning impaired and visually impaired students outnumber the physically impaired.

Bill Yurvati (East Stroud) is the access services librarian. Previously he worked as a librarian technician at Kutztown. The title “access services” has allowed him to look at all aspects of access in the library. There is an office of disabilities on campus. The majority of students use that instead of coming into the library. They do have an old Kurzweil reader, which no one knew how to use. He made contacts in the office of disabilities, which provided him with a manual for the reader. The building does have wheelchair access, but there are some issues that need to be resolved with the building itself. He doesn’t think that East Stroudsburg needs to provide the depth of service that Kutztown does, but he is thinking of supplemental services so that there are services for students who needs them. Examples include furniture, placement of materials, photocopiers, accessibility to key pads, some software, microfilm readers, access to the print collections, and reach to the reference and circulation desks.

David Magolis (Bloom) is the social sciences reference librarian and web master. He told about the accommodative services department on the Bloomsburg campus. He and Linda Neyer interviewed the director of the department. The director explained that at the university he deals with a range of disabilities, but the most common—and the one that is increasing—is mental disabilities. There are about 300 registered students, but the director deals with about 160-170 on a regular basis. David also talked about the resources currently available for students with disabilities in the library and about the recognized need for the librarians to learn more about both the currently available resources and the resources that should be offered but aren’t. His own interest in accommodative services came about because he is the web master and because he read an article that said the World Wide Web Consortium estimates that 99% of all web pages contain some invalid HTML code—which means that 99% of web pages are inaccessible to students who rely on electronic reading programs. He indicated that he had made some changes to the library page within the last few weeks.
Peggy Devlin indicated that her library was also making changes to its web page to become more ADA compliant.
David Magolis pointed out the resource Bobby that you can use to check your web page for ADA compliance. He will talk about that later in the session.

David Zubatsky (Millersville) joined the discussion once the introductions were under way.

Discussion:
Topic 1: Availability of rooms set aside for accommodating students with disabilities
Linda Neyer made the transition into our discussion by summing up a lot of what we had heard during the introductions. She thanked the universities who had responded to the preliminary questionnaire that had been sent out. Answers to the questionnaire had been received and were being tallied. She said that for the most part, the libraries were making progress in regards to accessibility to the physical spaces that were in the libraries, such things as accessible restrooms.

She asked how many university libraries had rooms set aside for students with disabilities. Survey says Kutztown, Slippery Rock, West Chester, IUP, and California have such rooms. Phil Tramdeck mentioned the common assumption that such rooms are not used, but whenever he walks by the rooms, they look used. Peggy Devlin pointed out that having a staff point person for students with disabilities increases use of such spaces in the library. Phil Tramdeck suggested having a card swipe for access to the rooms. The point was made, though, that community members might want to use these rooms. Sue Czerny pointed out having curtains in the windows of such rooms may help reduce any stigma that would result in using the rooms. Marilyn Stempeck mentioned the problem of having loud equipment, such as a Braille printer, but being unable to set it aside in a special room, which would result in segregating the users of the machine. She was told she was required to integrate the equipment into the rest of the library. Linda Neyer agreed that having loud equipment for students with visual impairments can be a problem, and that it can be disruptive to other students. She suggested having headphones. Bob Flatley said that Joanne Bucks had told him that their equipment had been out in the main area of the library but that students complained about the noise. Peggy Devlin said that as long as the room is open to everyone, then it is not segregation. Linda Neyer said that Bloomsburg does have a room, but it’s not labeled. It’s mostly a study area, and she encountered the problem of having another student in the room who did not want to yield the computer with the sound card to a student who needed to use that equipment. She wondered if signage for the room would help with that problem.

Topic 2: What should the library do to provide services for students with disabilities?
Linda Neyer asked what should a library do to provide such services? If an office of accommodative services on campus takes care of students’ needs, should the library do anything? To kick-start the discussion, she threw out a quote from an article she had read. The quote asked how a library can justify spending $10,000 on a workstation that will only be used once or twice a year. Someone (Peggy Devlin?) pointed out that that quote could also apply to certain databases or books. Amber Johnson pointed out that more and more information is available via databases off-campus, so a library may not need to provide certain services.

Linda Neyer asked if it might not be better in terms of funding to equip students, not libraries. Peggy Devlin mentioned that the state of New Jersey does just that—equipping students instead of libraries. She has had students come to the library and ask if it could house their equipment. When the students graduate, they then left the equipment with the library.

Clayton Garthwait argued that “access” is in many of our titles; we have to provide access to the information as well as to the facility. Funding may result in differences of services. When someone does come to the library, we do our best to provide access for them, but sometimes having a designated person to oversee accommodative services within the library gives greater incentive for that person to come into the library. It shows that the library is open and accessible to all patrons. Linda Neyer commented that it may be more a matter of personnel and attitude than any sort of equipment or software. Bill Yurvati said that the director of his office for facilities services is a very strong advocate for disabled students. He related the story of contacting this director and receiving a response of, “Wow! Someone is interested!” He thinks that if such offices perceive a lack of interest, they won’t send students to the library. If they know someone in the library is dedicated and willing to help students, then they will refer the students to the library.

Phil Tramdeck said that when a student is admitted to a university, that student expects the university to take care of his or her needs. Being able to take care of all student needs is an ideal; we see examples where this is not feasible. The people in the offices of accommodative services may be tired of attempting to reach other organizations on campus. We should approach them. David Zubatsky said that on his campus, the office of learning services focuses mostly on classroom faculty. As a result, most complaints state that the classroom faculty do not give accommodations to students. The office gives workshops twice a year, but they are mostly attended by library folk or those from other services on campus who already provide accommodations. The office is geared towards protecting the university from lawsuits. The office does work somewhat with the library, and there is a center at Millersville with equipment for students with disabilities.

Topic 3: Copyright
Linda Neyer recounted the story of a student who asked for some material to be read to her because she was an auditory learner. Linda asked if that was within the scope of a library’s responsibilities. Peggy Devlin mentioned that the Reading Edge software would do that. Someone (Sue Czerney?) pointed out that the office of accommodative services could provide services for making an audiotape or something like that for the student.

Linda Neyer then asked about copyright issues involved in providing accommodative services. For instance, is it illegal to make an audio recording of material for a student who is an auditory learner? What about providing equipment that can scan a textbook and create an electronic copy that students can then use for studying? David Zubatsky indicated that West Chester had had a problem like that involving making copies of textbooks. Clayton Garthwait indicated that the problem had involved scanning entire books and putting them on reserve as a way of making them accessible to students. The reserves were pulled. There was also the question of cataloging them, since that was the best way of letting students know the material was available. However, the decision was made not to catalog those materials, largely out of concern over copyright. David Zubatsky said that a copyright infringement occurs when publishers have materials for the visually handicapped ready for purchase, and they can make a profit from selling these materials. Universities and libraries in particular will buy the audio versions directly from the publishers. Phil Tramdeck agreed that profit is the key for copyright troubles. Voice recordings of material when the publisher doesn’t have such recordings for sale are not a problem. Linda Neyer said that having students register for this specific service has been suggested by Bloomsburg’s Office of Accommodative Services as a way to keep copyright problems under control.

Topic 4: Access for patrons
Peggy Devlin reaffirmed that access to information—going with the West Chester model—is key for the library. Whatever the format needed, we should provide access to the information. Bill Yurvati asked if any libraries received outside funding for accommodative equipment or services. West Chester’s office of OSSD had received outside funding, and they in turn gave the library the JAWS software. Edinboro indicated they had received their Reading Edge machine from the OSD.

Linda Neyer then asked what proactive strategies could libraries use to reach out to students with disabilities. Clayton Garthwait suggesting having one staff person as a point person in the library and also having one staff person involved with campus initiatives for students with disabilities. He indicated that West Chester had one staff person designated as the point person for assisting students; they also had people on the campus accommodative services task force. Don Dilmore said that at Edinboro, the head of the OSD had come to the library to talk to the faculty and staff about interacting with students with disabilities. The university also has a student assistant program, where a student is assigned to work with another student with disabilities. Linda Neyer said that a librarian from Lock Haven, unable to join the roundtable today, had indicated concern about having students helping other students find resources in the library. Peggy Devlin described the outreach programs that her library has. They have liaisons to many student groups on campus, not just students with disabilities, but also gay/lesbian students and African-American students, to give some examples. The liaisons actually go out and meet with these student groups. The library also mounts exhibits on many diverse topics.

Topic 5: Accessibility of web page
David Magolis wrapped up the session by discussing ADA compliance of web pages. He started out first by asking if databases are compliant. Can students with screen readers read articles from databases? He mentioned that often PDF documents can’t be read by screen readers, but that HTML pages can. He urged us to be proactive when looking at databases by asking if they provide articles in both PDF and HTML formats. Linda Neyer mentioned that EBSCO provides text-only options. Bob Flatley said that Section 508 [of the Rehabilitation Act] should start to pressure vendors to create accessible databases, since it mandates that anyone who works with the government needs to provide accessible web pages. The government purchases from EBSCO and many of the other vendors. Linda Neyer reiterated that libraries, too, need to pressure these vendors to provide databases that are compliant. David Magolis demonstrated the website Bobby, which will tell you if your webpage is ADA compliant. He urged those present to make sure, at minimum, that the library homepages were compliant. He showed that Bobby will generate a report of the webpage and flag problem areas within the HTML code. He pointed out that having a “text only” link on the webpage makes it ADA compliant, but that Bobby will not pick that up. Marilyn Stempeck asked if PILOT is ADA compliant. The consensus was no.

Prepared by Katie Yelinek, May 4, 2005