The Curious Incident of the Settings In the Night-Time

Before becoming a librarian I worked for my hometown chapter of a national nonprofit, The Arc, that supported children and adults with Intellectual and Developmental Disabilities (I/DDs). One part of my job was creating and developing inclusive programming for kids and adults with and without I/DDs - mostly it was a lot of sports and arts programming and all the fun things. Swimming was a big time event hosted in the summer because it gets real hot down in bayou country. I was even the head aquatics coach for our chapter of the Special Olympics and over 40 athletes competing on our team, The Krakens:

Photo provided by blog author

Another component to my job was running what was called The Inclusive Network, a community wide gathering of anyone interested in sharing their information or looking to learn how to be more inclusive. We had everyone from Parks and Rec to the Catholic Diocese to the bus operators and we would meet once a month to lunch and share together. This network helped people have their programs promoted to other populations, pool volunteers, and overall create a greater community. 

I also went around in the community and provided trainings on disability awareness and People First Language. These were requested by the nursing colleges, fire departments .... anyone who knew they were going to come into contact with people their in-house trainings didn't prepare them for. I would spend a few hours going over some of the most common I/DDs and educate people Diversity, Equity, and Inclusion but I also found myself answering a lot of questions in regards to people they had in their own personal lives and also debunking a lot of theories out there (for example, no, broccoli does not cause autism). 

Now as a public librarian, I'm taking what I learned in my prior job and using it to make a more equitable library. Some issues I can't fix - like ADA non-compliant elevators - but others I can do quickly and without a lot of effort. As I told people in my trainings, you can do small things that make a great impact. My librarian position has taken on a different turn and I'm helping a lot more adults in our spaces. Most of what they need help with is seeing things on the computer and learning how to do things that #digitalnatives seem to have always known like writing an email. 

I created a potential infographic to put up near our computer areas to show users how to adjust the settings. Our computer users can use either their library card or a guest pass to login and once they've logged off everything resets and any files downloaded are erased. So there is no harm in them adjusting the computer settings for their own personal benefit that would affect the next user. The biggest ease of access section they need is in the vision drop down. I've selected five of the biggest adjustments they might want to make and information on what each one does:

Infographic created by blog author using Canva

Ideally I could make an infographic like these for all the ease of access settings and have them located near the computers. This way the information is there and easy for them to access without feeling like they need to get up to ask. When I encounter an adult having computer or phone issues, it's usually preceeded  with all these apologies for not knowing how it works. There's a certain sense of independence and equity that comes with having handy learning tools nearby. By taking the initiative to create graphics like these (small steps), we're impacting our patron's sense of know-how and wellbeing (great impact). 

What I need to work is what other digital tools are out there that we could be using in the library. It wasn't until I looked at the Ease of Access section in our computer's settings that I realized we had a LOT of narrative tools available. The public library should always be held in to a high standard for meeting the Diversity, Equity, and Inclusion needs of our community and this narrative tool definitely helps that. But now I need to learn what else is out there?