It's Academic

Accessibility Awareness and Technologies in the Library

with Patricia Petronello and Scott Meneely

from the

Carnegie Library of Pittsburgh, Library for the Blind and Physically Handicapped

Aug 16 (Thursday) at 11 am

Zoom session: Register here for the link!

Library workers experience on a daily basis the variety of ways in which patrons interact with their environment according to their various abilities, preferences, and circumstances.  We are particularly concerned with the ways in which they most readily receive, process, and transmit information, how we can make our programming relevant and accessible to them, and what kinds of human interactions, physical accommodations, and technologies we can bring to bear to facilitate these transactions.

Scott and Patty will provide information and training for smartphone, tablet, and computer accessibility options (voiceover/screen readers, magnification, enlarged fonts, etc.), which are applicable to any operating system (iOS, Android), and any kind of device.  This includes setting up the devices, teaching the basic gestures of the different accessible features, and downloading and learning how to navigate an app.

 The Carnegie Library of Pittsburgh, Library for the Blind and Physically Handicapped (LBPH) is a network library of the National Library Service of the Library of Congress.  They offer free public library services to Pennsylvania residents who have difficulty reading standard print materials because of a visual, physical, or reading disability.  Services include digital audiobooks and downloads, large print books, reader advisory, accessible programming, and assistive technology training.

Scott Meneely has been working in libraries in various capacities since 2005.  He has provided training to patrons in Microsoft Office, Job Seeking Skills, and Accessible Technology.  He currently works at the Carnegie Library for the Blind and Physically Handicapped and is learning daily about the vast array of assistive technology that has the potential to improve the lives of our patrons.

Patty Petronello has been working in the Carnegie Library system for almost five years.  Although she has worked in multiple positions, she has always assisted patrons with technology in some capacity, from résumé building and cover letters to computer program explanations and cell phone help.  In the eight months that Patty has worked for LBPH she has expanded her expertise to include various types of assistive technologies.  She continues to build her assistive tech knowledge in the hope that by sharing it she will help to enhance the lives of our patrons in meaningful ways.

When: August 17, 2018
Where: Arcadia University, Glenside, PA

Description: In this day-long workshop on strategic and sustainable assessment, participants will identify institutional priorities and campus partners, design an assessment project grounded in action research, and prepare a plan for communicating the project results. This workshop is based on the highly successful ACRL Assessment in Action program curriculum.

Registration deadline: Friday August 10th. No registrations are accepted at the door. Attendance is limited to 100 people so register early.
PaLA Members – $45.00
Students – $25.00

REGISTER AT https://www.palibraries.org/events/EventDetails.aspx?id=1121902&group=

More details and the full program schedule can be found at goo.gl/U2wRDC

This project is made possible by a grant from the U.S. Institute of Museum and Library Services as administered by the Pennsylvania Department of Education and the Commonwealth of Pennsylvania, Tom Wolf, Governor, through the College and Research Division (https://crdpala.org/) of PaLA. Show your appreciation by becoming a member of PaLA! And if you are a member – thank you!

It almost seems mundane to hear daily about the brave battles being fought against sweeping catastrophic forest fires in the wilderness and rural areas of California, Colorado and other western states; but do we know the extent of them? July 6, 2018 Nicole Rojas reported for Newsweek “More than 60 large wildfires are burning throughout the United States, particularly in the West.”

“The County Fire in California and the Spring Creek Fire in Colorado are the largest fires currently
burning in the western United States. INCIWEB.” http://www.newsweek.com/wildfires-2018…

As eyebrow raising as this may be, libraries ought to inform patrons about the bigger picture by engaging our communities in public awareness about how the United States increasingly confronts billion-dollar natural disasters. For example, it was reported last month that the financial cost of California’s PG & E wildfire last fall, “will probably exceed $2.5 billion” (Dale Kasler, “Biggest disaster ever?” June 21, 2018, The Sacramento Bee, https://www.sacbee.com/latest-news/article213580349.html).

In fact, at the beginning of 2018 it was already estimated that the previous year was one of the costliest on record, exceeding $300 billion in direct damages. See: Adam B. Smith, “2017 U.S. billion-dollar weather and climate disasters: a historic year in context,” January 8, 2018, Beyond the Data, Climate.gov, NOAA.

“This map depicts the general location of the sixteen weather and climate disasters assessed to cause
at least one billion dollars in direct damages during 2017.” https://www.climate.gov/news-features/blogs/beyond-data/2017-us-billion-dollar-weather-and-climate-disasters…

Although 2017 was a particularly devastating year due to natural disasters in the U. S. it was not a singularity as demonstrated by a suite of easy to use Web tools made available by the National Centers for Environmental Information (NCEI), including mapping, summary stats and more which cover the period of 1980-2018. Explore: Billion-Dollar Weather and Climate Disasters, https://www.ncdc.noaa.gov/billions/.

More and more conferences are incorporating digital poster sessions, and some libraries are even building spaces to accommodate them. Here I share some tips for designing and presenting a digital poster based on my recent first-time experience co-presenting one.

My co-presenter, professor Todd Thompson of Indiana University of Pennsylvania, and I designed a digital poster about a Hawaiian newspaper from the 1850s for a symposium about historical newspapers hosted by the American Antiquarian Society (AAS) in Worcester, MA. While I had presented print posters at conferences in the past, neither my co-presenter nor I had ever presented a digital poster before. The process of designing and presenting this digital poster, as well as conversations with other poster presenters, taught me the following lessons.

Designing the digital poster

• Static or dynamic? One of the advantages of a digital poster is that you are not limited to a fixed format. At the AAS symposium, the conference organizers encouraged presenters to be creative (some conferences still want presenters to adhere to traditional poster formats even if they are digital). My colleague and I discussed whether we wanted our poster to be static or dynamic, and based on the subject matter and our presentation style, we decided to make a dynamic poster. We discussed whether we wanted to use a PowerPoint slideshow consisting of three looping slides or a similar set-up using Google Slides or Prezi. Ultimately, we built a simple website with WordPress that had one main page with three subpages.
• Color or black-and-white? Printing a color poster measuring 3 feet by 4 feet can be very expensive. Depending upon the support your institution offers for printing large format posters, you could end up paying out of pocket costs which might lead you to print in cheaper black-and-white instead. With a digital poster, you do not have to worry about printing costs, giving you freedom to experiment with color schemes to draw attention to your project. In our case, the AAS had made available high quality color scans of the Hawaiian newspapers, and we were able to incorporate many of these color images into our digital poster. If you use color, consider checking to make sure it is accessible for visitors who are colorblind.
• Multimedia elements? Creating a digital poster gives you the option of adding multimedia elements such as audio or video. For example, one of the other digital posters at the AAS symposium included an interactive map of newspapers that helped visitors to visualize the paper’s publishing distribution.
• Screen format? When designing a digital poster, you may want to check with organizers beforehand to find out the dimensions of the display monitors. Then you can design the poster keeping in mind whether a 16:9 or 4:3 aspect ratio will be a better fit, or whether your images will appear crisp if they are blown up on a huge HD screen.
• Responsive design? Consider whether you will design your digital poster so that its layout can adapt to being viewed on desktop versus mobile devices. For instance, we brought two iPads to our digital poster session to allow individual visitors interested in subject-specific deep dives to browse our website at their leisure while we used the big screen to talk with a larger group, so we had to make sure our design was responsive.

Presenting the digital poster

• Supplement your presentation with physical props. Consider passing out bookmarks, handouts, magnets, pins, or other items to give visitors a physical reminder of your digital project.
• Share your presentation with an outside audience. Digital posters make it easy to share your research with others who are not able to attend the conference. Consider making a website, publishing your slide deck, and using the conference hashtag on social media to expand the reach of your digital poster.
• Some things stay the same. Whether you are presenting a print poster or a digital one, bring along a bottle of water and a notebook for recording questions. Also, take time to circulate and check out other researchers’ posters; one of the advantages of co-presenting is that it allows you to take turns manning the table so you do not miss out on the other presentations!

Jessica Showalter is an Information Resources and Services Support Specialist at Penn State Altoona’s Eiche Library. Say hello on Twitter @libraryjms