Online discussion of diversity in library profession

Courtney Louise Young

In her column for American Libraries, January/February 2015, American Libraries Association president Courtney Young invites readers to join a “Diversity Membership Initiative Group to advance a commitment to diversity: “not only fostering the diversity of the profession but also working to ensure that we are serving all segments of our populations.”

For reasons that are both professional and personal, I share this commitment to diversity. On Dec. 29, I applied and was accepted for membership in the Diversity MIG.

Oregon Public Broadcasting’s auto-caption fail

Via contact form, I wrote to express my concern with Oregon Public Broadcasting for accepting YouTube auto-captioning as a substitute for genuine transcripts.

Digital publishing should play to digital’s strengths

A statement by Jean Gralley in “Liftoff: When Books Leave the Page” (Horn Book Magazine, Jan/Feb 2006) really stood out for me this week in my readings for Children’s Literature.

Jackson County Library Services: new website

Image source: Jackson County Library Services

A new website recently went live for Jackson County Library Services, at http://jcls.org/. Developed by iOR Consulting with the Wordpress blogging and website-hosting platform, the site employs a much more hierarchical approach that helps direct viewer attention, instead of confronting a jumble of information all competing to be noticed by the viewer.

eBooks in library catalogs: Text-to-speech notation

My internship brought me to the Medford IMC, where I created records in the Follett-Destiny online catalog for Kindle eBook files. Once a record has been created, each school site with that title will be able to add copies to their catalogs.

Accessibility of online tools: report tracks top ideas

The U.S. Department of Labor’s Office of Disability Employment Policy, the Partnership on Employment and Accessible Technology (PEAT) and the Autistic Self Advocacy Network (ASAN) have completed a report compiling “participation metrics” for an online conversation about making web-based tools easier to use for workers with intellectual disabilities, cognitive issues, traumatic brain injury or other disabilities.

The dialogue was open from Dec. 9 to 20.

I’m gratified that the idea that I backed — concern for personality screening of job applicants — made the report’s “Top 5 Ideas” under “Applying for Jobs.” But I want to express my concern about the competitive nature of the PEAT-ASAN forum. Why was it structured so that people were able to vote down other people’s ideas?

Discussion to address improved accessibility of online employment tools

Cartoon image created with Bitstrips and added April 4, 2015

The U.S. Office of Disability Employment Policy is hosting an online dialogue about ways to make job-related technology more accessible to applicants with intellectual disabilities, cognitive issues, traumatic brain injuries or similar disabilities.

The discussion could not be more timely, given the increased prevalence of “social suitability” questions as part of the application process. In my opinion, any discussion of accessibility needs to include deliberate barriers imposed against job candidates.

UU World articles accessible as MP3 files

Don Hymel

Readers with print disabilities can access UU World articles, recorded as MP3 files. Files are available for the current issue (as of this viewing, Winter 2013) through Fall 2012. Don Hymel, a Unitarian Universalist from San Antonia, Texas, reads and creates each MP3 file.

Author’s Note: The librarian may leave the library, but the library doesn’t leave the librarian — especially given my interest in promoting accessible collections and services. My first real “library job” was volunteer administrator for the UUCLC Lending Library in Lake County, Calif., and I couldn’t resist passing this along.

‘Invisible’ disabilities pose job hunting challenges

People with “invisible” disabilities face a quandary when seeking work: to conceal or reveal the disability, each with potential consequences for finding and keeping employment? For the New York Times, Katherine Bouton provides an excellent, in-depth, report.

Stakeholders address accessibility in web design

Because it transcends geographic boundaries and puts the power of content creation into the hands of anyone, the Internet offers a unique opportunity for people with disabilities to shape social attitudes and dialogue.

‘The New Information Professional’

The New Information Professional examines education and career paths in what authors Judy Lawson, Joanna Kroll and Kelly Kowatch identify as “some of the most cutting edge career and educational opportunities available.”

The information career tracks profiled in their book include Archives/Preservation of Information, Records Management, Library and Information Services, Human-Computer Interaction, Social Computing, Information Policy and Information Analysis and Retrieval.

I have experience in more than one of these information tracks.

During my tenure at the Lake County Record-Bee, I was engaged in social computing. I administered corporate Twitter and Facebook accounts to promote content and engage with readership.

I continue in this capacity with my library advocacy initiative, Yarn Bombing @ Your Library. In addition to creating and installing my own tags, I curate images on Facebook of other artists’ work.

I blog about issues of information policy and human-computer interaction, including accessibility of web design.

And, of course, I treasure my experience as a library volunteer: locating holds, shelving and supervising other volunteers during the Middletown library’s move to a new and larger facility and purchasing books, generating policy and promoting enjoyment of a small church lending library.

I am grateful for more recent volunteer experience in the Government Publications Department at Southern Oregon University’s Hannon Library. This and my work as an independent contractor for the Ashland-based Folium Partners represent some of my earliest connections in a new community.

So while I fight to rally support for financing Jackson County libraries, while I continue submitting applications to work at area libraries, I would welcome work — and have already worked — in these alternate areas.

Web accessibility: Annotated bibliography

According to Katie Cunningham, author of the Accessibility Handbook (O’Reilly Media), web accessibility can cover four groups: people with visual, physical, hearing and cognitive impairments. As a woman on the autism spectrum, I am a personal stakeholder in web accessibility.

The subject is additionally timely, given a focus on “Technology in the Library” in American Libraries’ “Professional Developments” column (May 2013). Given these combined factors, web accessibility seemed a natural focus for my Advanced Internet Searching class.

Internet research: Web accessibility

In the course of taking an online class in advanced Internet searching, I am researching Web site accessibility.

According to Katie Cunningham, author of the Accessibility Handbook (O’Reilly Media), web accessibility can cover four groups: people with visual, physical, hearing and cognitive impairments. As a woman on the autism spectrum, I am a personal stakeholder in web accessibility.

‘Without a Net’: Digital divide explained

Jessamyn C. West explores the facets of computer use and Internet accessibility in her book, Without a Net: Librarians Bridging the Digital Divide (Libraries Unlimited, 2010).

The digital divide, according to West, is about:

“Some people lacking skills that other people consider basic, starter or remedial, and not having a peer group or an educational system that can teach you. It’s also about people assuming, ‘Oh, everyone knows that,’ and moving right on by. The digital divide isn’t about not having a computer, though that can be part of it. The digital divide isn’t really about not knowing how to use a computer, though many people I work with can’t. The digital divide is about not knowing anyone who knows how to use a computer well enough to teach you. It’s about not being part of a tech-literate culture and not knowing a way out of that setting.”

Workplace troubleshooting: Menu icons

At the University of California, Berkeley Library:
An explanation of how to set preferences when using Google Scholar

My assignment this week for LIBT 115, Technology in the Workplace, was to document troubleshooting a problem that I could expect to encounter at work.

The problem I encounter with social media websites and web-based email applications is a shift in usability away from clearly-labeled menu functions to pictorial icon-based labeling. No matter how many times I see a gear wheel, I have to think every time what each menu icon means.

Here are the trouble-shooting steps I came up with:

1. Does the icon appear familiar? Think about other programs that made use of this icon. Did those other programs use this icon to represent the function you are trying to access now?

2. If the icon is unfamiliar: With cursor, rollover the pictorial icon and wait for alt-text description to appear.

3. Is it the function you want? If yes, press the icon.

4. If the icon does not correspond to the function that you are trying to locate, choose another icon and repeat from step 2 as necessary until desired menu function is located.

Cunningham: Accessibility covers four groups

At 21Times.org, author Katie Cunningham addresses a belief held by business owners and website administrators concerning accessibility: that there are so few people with disabilities in the world that, statistically, it is highly probable that none of these are using the product or site. She states:

“The idea of the disabled being a small number usually begins with the misconception that web accessibility is all about the blind. Though many of the efforts towards an accessible web aim at the visually impaired, there’s actually more to it than that.”