Inclusion, Diversity, Equity, and Accessibility (IDEA)

September 2022 report from the American Libraries Association

Libraries have many reasons to create accessible facilities to visitors with a wide range of abilities and disabilities, including legal requirements, policy guidelines, and a professional focus on equity and inclusion. At a minimum, all US libraries are required to comply with the Americans with Disabilities Act (ADA), which requires that structural barriers in libraries be removed or remediated to allow people with disabilities to access spaces.

This resource guide provides information on ALA policies and resources for library service to persons with disabilities, information on ALA working groups, a selected bibliography, and other online resources.

Library Journal Article from November 2022

Academic libraries invest thousands of dollars in assistive technologies (AT) for enhancing the delivery of information services to disabled patrons. However, offering AT might not result in their use by the patrons who need them, thereby leading to a service divide. The analysis of qualitative responses, including more than 1,400 quotations, elicited from academic library administrators and librarians in 186 public universities across the United States, reveals that academic libraries encounter 51 challenges related to the knowledge and skills of librarians, hardware and software concerns, institutional factors, finances, and external actors, when serving disabled patrons with AT. Finally, the researchers propose 15 solutions for bridging this service divide.

Interesting as a tool for auditing webpages dedicated to describing accessibility in the library.

Librarians with disabilities face barriers to accessibility and inclusion

Adapted from "Accessibility in Libraries: A Landscape Review"

University of Washington 2018 checklist for making libraries welcoming, accessible, and usable

The Library Accessibility Alliance (LAA) promotes equitable access to library services and electronic resources. Our member libraries are committed to providing equal access to information for all library users, and we work together to improve vendor products, educate our community, and advance digital accessibility.

The Universal Accessibility Interest group offers librarians, support staff, students, and other advocates networking and collaboration opportunities, information sharing and programming to promote accessibility in academic libraries, including web accessibility, assistive technology, reference and instruction for users with disabilities and captioning processes.