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This article describes a project at Baltimore County Public Library (BCPL) that aims to improve access for people who are blind or who have low vision. As public libraries move toward providing more digital-based resources, this is an opportunity to provide access for patrons who need resources in an alternative format. This project focused on website accessibility, digital databases, physical library accessibility, staff training, and marketing. The article describes the steps that BCPL will take to turn these research findings into practice. [ABSTRACT FROM AUTHOR]

The article discusses the impact of the Internet on library research, public libraries, and public library research. It examines the methods of the Public Library Funding and Technology Access Study. The authors assert that the Internet has allowed libraries to add capacity to library research. The article briefly discusses the technological environment prior to the Internet and studies sponsored by the U.S. National Commission on Libraries and Information Science (NCLIS) and the American Library Association (ALA).

Purpose -- The chapter provides instruction on how public libraries can improve the services that they provide to community members with print-related disabilities. Methodology/approach -- A combination of methods was used (interview, survey, document analysis, usability testing, and expert inspection), to investigate the current level of service provided to community members who are blind or low vision by the Baltimore County Public Library, in five areas: 1. Web Accessibility and Maintenance 2. Staff Awareness and Training 3. Physical Environment of the Library 4. Library offerings, including databases, materials, and equipment: what we have now and what we should have 5. Marketing materials: what, how, and where to be more visible Findings -- In all five areas, there were important findings about current barriers to accessibility, and suggestions for improvement in the future were made in the chapter. Practical implications -- The chapter details the steps taken by a large public library system, in a challenging budget environment, with changing leadership, to make improvements in the quality of service provided to people who are blind or low vision. Originality/value -- In the past, people with print-related disabilities were often referred to the Maryland State Library for the Blind and Physically Handicapped. However, over time, the nature of materials acquisitions at public libraries has changed. A large percentage of materials acquired by public libraries is now in digital format, which provides an opportunity for public libraries to start providing services to people with print disabilities. [ABSTRACT FROM AUTHOR]

The article presents a reprint of the article "Retrofitting Accessibility: The Legal Inequality of After-the- Fact Online Access for Persons with Disabilities in the United States," by Brian Wentz, Paul T. Jaeger, and Jonathan Lazar, which appeared in the Volume 16, Number 11 of the November 2011 issue of the online journal "First Monday." It mentions the unequal accessibility of the technological innovations for people with disabilities and suggests to transform the disability rights laws.

Despite the significant advantages that access to information and communication technology has made to many of our lives, the related benefits, opportunities and even equalizing effect of this technology are often not accessible or only partially accessible to a growing portion of the global population. Current disability rights laws which are supposed to exist for the protection and well-being of individuals with disabilities are often too close to the heart of the problem, as they can actually promote a separate but unequal online environment. If current U.S. laws were revised to encourage born-accessible technology and there was consistent enforcement of such laws, the online experience of millions of individuals with disabilities could be drastically improved. This article examines the aspects of the current laws that perpetuate a separate but unequal online environment, discussing past and current examples of such inequity. It also contrasts the structure of current U.S. disability rights laws with other civil rights legislation and offers a set of policy recommendations that could have a positive impact on accessibility. [ABSTRACT FROM AUTHOR]

Three National Science Foundation (NSF) programs - Human-Computer Interaction, Universal Access, and Digital Society and Technologies - were recently combined into one new cluster called "Human-Centered Computing" (HCC). Two workshops were held to share information about this new cluster with researchers, provide guidance to researchers who are early in their research careers and have yet to receive NSF funding, and provide feedback to NSF from the affected research communities regarding topics that are considered particularly important by this community. Continuing and emerging research opportunities identified included privacy and security issues in HCC context, intelligent user interfaces, universal access including research for different populations such as children and older adults, mobile and ubiquitous computing, and social computing, among others. Various issues concerning interdisciplinary research opportunities were also raised, including understanding the disciplines, promotion and tenure concerns, administrative overhead, and where to publish. Education discussions produced a list of curricular recommendations and a number of opportunities to enhance the education of future HCC practitioners and researchers. [ABSTRACT FROM AUTHOR]

This paper reports on a study of 50 homepages in the Mid-Atlantic United States to determine what accessibility problems exist. The 50 homepages were evaluated using both the U.S. government’s Section 508 guidelines as well as the Web Accessibility Initiative’s (WAI) Priority Level 1 of the Web Content Accessibility Guidelines (WCAG). According to both sets of guidelines, 49 out of 50 sites were found to have accessibility problems, although some of the accessibility problems were minor and easy to fix. There are two troubling findings from this study. The Web sites that had the most accessibility problems were organizations in the Web development and information technology field, which ideally should be the leaders in making the Web more accessible. The Web accessibility software testing tools, which are available to assist people in making their Web sites more accessible, are flawed and inconsistent and require large numbers of manual checks, which many developers may not be able to do. More people need to become aware of the topic of Web accessibility, and the testing tools need to be improved so that once people are aware, it is easier for them to move their sites toward full accessibility. [ABSTRACT FROM AUTHOR]