|
The
road to the award began when Long Beach Public
Library participated in the California State
Library’s (CSL’s) “Public Library Services
for People with Disabilities” program, a
two-year, $1.4 million project that helped public
libraries improve their services to people with
disabilities. Funded by the Library Services and
Technology Act, participating libraries worked
with their communities during 2002/03 to identify
the best ways to do that.
The
award-winning result of the California State
Library’s training was Long Beach Public
Library’s Information Center for People with
Disabilities that opened October 21, 2003 during
Disabilities Awareness Month. The Friends of the
Library built the 420-square-foot Center in the
Main Library that includes state-of-the-art
computers with adaptive technology, a printer, a
scanner, and a variety of assistive devices. The
Center also houses a reading area with books for
adults and children, videos, and magazines on
topics related to disabilities.
The
Long Beach Center empowers people with
disabilities. In its first year alone, the Center
served over 1533 people who, for the first time in
their lives, used computers and accessed the
Internet, retrieved library materials from
shelves, and read books without assistance.
The
Center can actually change lives. Bill had thought
that education and employment were over for him
after an accident fifteen years ago left him
paralyzed from the neck down. After using a
computer with only his eyes at the Center, though,
Bill went on to enroll in Long Beach City
College’s distance learning degree program and
now plans to become a computer designer.
To
further the Center’s mission, Long Beach Library
has adapted its policies, such as extending loan
periods, to reflect the needs of people with
disabilities. Further, the library now identifies
services for people with disabilities as one of
its “core services” and plans to expand the
program to its branches, creating mini-centers in
each.
|
