Date: 06‑28‑10

Event: OPAL

>> Patrick: I'm Patrick Timony and I'm the Adaptive Technology Librarian at the D.C. library and we're very happy to host this universal accessibility meeting.

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To my right and halfway down the hall and north side of the second floor library and everyone is welcome to stay afterwards and get a tour and the hands on demo of our list of adaptive technologies which goes on five pages and differences and things and that room also contains a room for the physically handicapped and as well as our lab service and our services to the deaf community. We stay afterwards from 10:00 to 11:00 and more directive and hands on opportunities here at the library. As for this meeting at the end what we ‑‑ so before we go into the top of the meeting I want to say about the set‑up sort of like I'm talking to you right now. The meeting is more sort of a roundtable. So very soon I'll be able to have this wireless microphone and pass that around the audience and then we would love to hear from any ‑‑ people tell you what the topic is again. So anyone has a ‑‑ something really important or a number of things to say you can sort of talk for a while but also it should be like a question and answer. We're OPAL online programming for all libraries. On the screen directly to my left here you can see that it is an audio connection that we have with anyone who wants to log into this system. You can see the list of people who are participating right now. They can hear our audio and they are chatting back to us. I can see Korey Singleton is here and he's the assistive technology specialist and he is an expert on the issues of adaptive technology and web accessibility and active participant in our adaptive services group. As soon as we get the plug to ‑‑ to plug the electricity in for that laptop and so OPAL is a way to share this information. We have people participate remotely and also to archive the information. It allows you to save the audio and text chat and the URL stream to your computer and I think probably also remotely. And then on the ‑‑ the other screen over there we have ‑‑ we'll have here shortly 20/20 Captioning's which is the service that remotely uses stenography to caption real‑time stream of audio so that people can participate that are deaf or hard of hearing. Nothing else come on up.

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>> Speaker: Welcome, everybody we're waiting for us to get started and my name is ‑‑ I want to thank Patrick and Venetia who is not here right now for doing so much work to set this up. Oh, she is here. In the back. And set up the captioning and remote access to this interest group which was announced recently. So not everybody may be aware that was available. But it is something that we're trying out. And I wanted to explain a little bit history of the interest group and also the other groups that are co‑discussing today I guess. It would be the ways to it. Since we're having a discussion rather than a meeting.

>> Speaker: I have a sign‑in sheet. If you want to write your e‑mail and name on here I will after today send out an announcement of the listserv for this group that you could get on to if you want and also the link to the ALA connect space where you can get on and get more information.

>> Speaker: Could you say two words about the online auditorium?

>> Speaker: Sure. Should you go first or finish first? Okay. Okay. Thanks. Let's see, the discussion group started a year ago before the ATRL interest group started. There was a group called that academic libraries accessibility and disability discussion group. ALSDD is another division and do you want to wave, Sarah?

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>> Speaker: I wanted to find a way to integrate it more into ATRL and I started the ATRL interest group. Also met Ron and Helen sitting here in the front row and Helen suggested that Venetia could also start an interest group and she did that. Do you want to say hi, Helen? Do you want to introduce yourself here.

>> Speaker: I'm Helen and I saw Dana's post and said ah this is something that Alita needs to be interested in technology point of view. He is my co‑chair as an interest group.

>> Speaker: I'm assistant.

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>> Speaker: Ront. It is the incoming convener for the ACRL part of the interest group. All three of the groups have been meeting together to have a discussion on Monday morning at the conference and we are pretty informal but we're really happy that this time Patrick was able to invite people from adaptive service interest group and accessibility DC meet‑up who probably have a good bit more experience than most of us do who are kind of initiating this and technology issues and accessibility issues. I have a couple more things to mention. I think that we can go around and introduce ourselves. We'll pass around the microphone because that is going to make what you say available to the CART. Some is different with the microphone but don't be intimidated by it. So people can introduce themselves and then any accessibility issue

>> Speaker: There are a couple of things that I wanted to bring up. We're going to need a new convener after 2011 so not too early to start thinking about that. If anybody here is interested this is your first or second time maybe if the interest group and the next convener which would be for 2012 starting at annual after annual and so keep in mind. And the last thing I was going to mention I have a handout I actually forgot to bring it out here. I'll put it in the Adaptive Services Division when we have tours and it is a printout of a first page of a wiki so you can find the wiki about accessibility of library databases and academic and a Public Library databases are mentioned on there. So just a resource to know about. And Helen wants to mention some evaluation sheets.

>> Speaker: We pass out evaluation sheets for any program or discussion that we're dealing with so we'll have these here in the front for people to pick up. Thank you very much.

>> Speaker: And let me give Tom a chance to say hello if you would like to.

>> Tom: Yes, thank you, everyone. We're actually recording this on my netbook right now. We have a few people online. What we found is that by recording it, you know, it is still 5:00 a.m. on the West Coast.

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>> Speaker: Thank you for being here, too, and making it work out for us.

>> Speaker: I have people say hello and where you're from. Say what is your interest. How you found out about.

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>> Speaker: We will go from there. And it is not going to reach that far.

>> Speaker: University of Wyoming. I'm a member.

>> Speaker: I'm a legal intern and I'm just here to advance this to my supervisor who is working on disability issues.

>> Speaker: I'm Kathi from Iowa State university. One of my many hats is working with our university disability resources center and providing a library services. They do all the other things but we do things for them.

>> Speaker: I'm my name is [inaudible]. And I have applied for a job as an intern at the library as a librarian assistant. I go to the library every few weeks and my children go with me. That is my interest here.

>> Speaker: Hi. I work at the library for the deaf community and work in assistive technology and access.

>> Speaker: Also I just wanted to say thanks to the e‑mail I received that I got from Janice.

>> Speaker: Good morning. I'm Justin Swain volunteer with the adaptive services branch. Typically this is Patrick Timony and today if we choose to and can, we'll merge that in with the rest of the things that go with this presentation.

>> Speaker: Looks like they got the captioning going again, I think.

>> Speaker: A lot of different interest. A lot of things people are doing. And anybody have a question or a topic that they want to start with? A lot of people talking about web accessibility. Sure.

>> Speaker: I'm not sure if we mentioned our web accessibility. We already ‑‑ if we talked about the DC Public Library web accessibility and I'll talk about that real quickly just in case. Last October in this library we had web accessibility D.C. Accessibility camp D.C. which is about 80 people here and we had 15 ‑‑ 10 or 15 people fly in around the country. These were expert level after adaptive technology users and that group came together with a group of web developers who are just accessibility. So everyone is very specialized. It was a conference meeting and it was ‑‑ the agenda was developed on the day of the event and you have one full meeting in the morning where you decide what people talk about and when they talk about it. We did it at least two of these and episodes and the division and the rest of the day was dead waited to talking about web accessibility and information we receive between the two groups of adaptive technology users working high‑level and web developers. So that is ‑‑ that community then has a monthly meeting that the library where they get together and either hear demonstrations from adaptive technology or any context of web accessibility and we'll talk about how to set up a project, how to run an accessibility project.

We meet every Tuesday of the month and it is a core people now who share information and get that kind of continual ‑‑ continual professional development.

Also then there is an accessibility camp in Boston which is the second one and held at Adobe facilities and, so, it is related and another ‑‑ web accessibility.

>> Speaker: Patrick I'm wondering if the people online can we ‑‑ are they still there?

>> Speaker: Yes.

>> Speaker: Great. So are those people, have they participated in the things that you're talking about?

>> Patrick: I can see Korey Singleton and he participated in a number of our adaptive services interest group meetings. He may have been ‑‑ I don't know if you can hear me but I don't know if you attended the accessibility camp DC the first one or keeping up‑to‑date on that. But I'm not sure where I'm looking for his feedback.

>> Speaker: He's typing. It will show up.

>> Patrick: Korey, if you can hear us, chip in. You go that way to the accessibility camp and our services and share the information [inaudible] from the University and Dan Newson from University of Maryland who is the adaptive technology specialist at the library and Les who is at Montgomery college and Kara Manchester who is at [inaudible] college in ‑‑ in ‑‑ what is it? Korey ‑‑ where is Carol?

>> Speaker: Howard County.

>> Patrick: Howard County Community College and among others and Public Library from Baltimore and from Virginia. I can hear you. I did not attend the accessibility camp in D.C. in October. I was actually out of town at that time.

>> Speaker: Sounds like we have several people who have a good amount of experience with adaptive technology and these issues and we have some people who are new and may have questions. I can start talking about my experience with starting to get into accessibility issues and if other people want to join in and ask questions.

I sort of started when the person at my library, which is [inaudible] university had ‑‑ who had maintained the adaptive computers retired. They said oh you used to be a job coach maybe you can do that now. I didn't know anything about the technology. I jumped in. I started finding out there was a student who is blind who began coming to the reference desk because she didn't really have a lot of experience using a screen reader. She's from another country and didn't have to use a screen reader so much they relied more on human readers where she was from.

And, so, various librarians were spending an hour, some good amount of time trying to figure out how it worked and discovering that screen readers were not that easy to use. I slowly started learning how to use the screen reader myself working with her. Luckily she is patient and came to ALA conference and heard a talk from Axil (sp) who published some articles on accessibility of library web pages and library databases and discovered that that was an issue, too. And I started learning more and more as I know a lot of people here have been about the need for library ‑‑ academic libraries in particular to pay attention to that when we're choosing online resources and with our own in‑house created electronic resources.

One of the things that I have been talking with people about is coming up with contract language for sample contract language to get to a contract with vendors and libraries could use to say this required that there be some accessibility. So actually got a chance to talk with some people yesterday from the reading rights coalition and certain [inaudible] institute and had a helpful idea about that. We hope to keep going with that and find a way to promote something like that if we get a little paragraph written or something that the libraries could use and try to brainstorm about that, ways to do that. If anybody in ‑‑ I know some other people are pretty involved with figuring out accessibility from their library websites and numbers, too. I'm definitely interested in hearing other peoples' experiences with how you're doing that or if you have questions about that, that would be great.

Let me think, any ‑‑ any questions people have? One common thing that comes up in these discussions usually is people wondering about the assistive technology that they have in the library or that they are thinking about changing or maybe a student came in and had questions and people were not sure thousand handle it and talking about how that played out.

Anybody have questions or topics that you're dealing with now or things that you think might be interesting for ‑‑ okay. Justin.

>> Justin: I was wondering ‑‑

>> Speaker: Give him the microphone.

>> Justin: I'll hook up to the microphone. the challenge of it all. My question is, to what degree, if any, are you aware of the use of open storage software and applications? It is a great way to cost affectively provide services, get frequent updates and if there is a feature that you don't see, you can contact the developers and describe it in measurable terms what it is you would like. If you would like the ability to turn off some features, well, you can do the same thing. Contact the developers and let them know.

Instead of having to wait months or years, you may discover WOW, it only took a few hours or it might have took ‑‑ might have taken a few weeks.

>> Speaker: Thank you. Venetia. Here is another microphone, too.

>> Venetia: I wanted to make a couple of comments. I believe it is Gail, not sure, but one of the providers of electronic databases is now providing an audio access to the databases. Any of you aware of that? Okay. And there is a company ‑‑ there are several ways to have ‑‑ there is a company that is coming to see me again this afternoon called browse aloud. This is just one example. If you look at the US Senate website, you see that it is technology that will read the ‑‑ will click on something and it will read the web page to you.

There are a few solutions out there. Our experience with the D.C. government trying to make websites accessible has been a journey and I think you need to view it that way with your own IT departments because it is really a challenge, especially in the academic environment where we have such a broad array of disabilities from people who need dragon naturally speaking to people who use JAWS to people who use [inaudible] 3000 or wind wizard or another learning disability software we have a wide range of needs out there. There is another company called doc soft which some of you may know of. They have a product that they sell that has a dragon basis and will record in an academic environment. It gets about 70% of what the Professor says so these text versions of every class that some universities have implemented have to be massaged. It is not a pure product where the Professor just talks into it and the text version of the class just comes up. But, nevertheless, it is a way to capture and make accessible classroom classes at universities that some universities are using.

>> Speaker: I would just like to call out and ask if anybody here has browse aloud on their website or texting [inaudible] because those are something we have been investigating, too, it is cool because it is something that you just ‑‑ it just rests passively on your website and people ‑‑ the user down loads it to their computer. It is not something you have to take care of. Just make it available to them.

>> Speaker: One point I want to say is that in nonvisual desktop access which is one of the powerful, free readers that has a capability now to ‑‑ that point and click capability but it works for any website. I think the issue browse aloud is that it only works on websites that buy into the ‑‑ buy into the system and text link is some other technical question which makes it difficult and powerful system and proprietary and issues with both. [inaudible] is not compatibility and not assume that is usually how it is with open source software and it may ‑‑ it is not definitely as powerful as screen readers and JAWS is but it does have the capability to point at anything on a web ‑‑ not anything but HTML on the web page and it works for any web page and you can also load really nice sounding voices on to it. The voices uses it and it can be on to [inaudible] so I have not checked into that but just having used it a couple of times it is the solution that I was looking for and browse aloud.

>> Speaker: We have been using [inaudible] extensively.

>> Cart Provider: Please use the microphone. Thank you.

>> Speaker: To use our services and we really like it. I would recommend checking it out if you haven't because it is really I'm advocate for software because it is accessible.

>> Speaker: I'm glad to hear it works as point and click because as a reference librarian a challenge doing reference with people who use JAWS to some degree, sometimes ‑‑ well, sometimes, you know, it is so and being a so kind of is a user myself and figuring out to navigate it and I'm visually looking at it and the other person is, you know, hearing it. So that sounds like in some ways it could be helpful and I would try [inaudible] and some of the key strokes are similar and I started with the key strokes in JAWS and some of my students use [inaudible] and that is pretty practical.

>> Speaker: You know, [inaudible] university librarian issue.

>> Cart Provider: Microphone please.

>> Speaker: Usually in JAWS software and documentation and journal article images that is where the [inaudible] hit a brick wall [inaudible] and JAWS company and so we have to be mindful of that. In an accessible format, a Word format. Word or HTML. Most are happy with Word. And the other thing is some organizations and journals [inaudible] locking and try to file [microphone please] and I believe that [microphone please] of course core services and that is the transition and hear what others say and do. Perhaps later on but not ‑‑

>> Speaker: Cameron, since you have the microphone would you talk about captioning, videos on the website, also? I think it ‑‑ if you have educational videos on your website or if you're recording classes, you have to make them accessible to the deaf community who might be members of the ‑‑ of going to school at that location.

>> Speaker: Sure. You know, the captioning, we use a lot of captioning here at the university and one of the things that we do is have professors who ask us to caption videos for educational purposes and oftentimes the videos are given to a last minute and we use caption tool like [inaudible] and we have to use name of the caption ‑‑ fan it was I can't and it is easy what you see is what you get tool. It works well for the information. However you look and if you give us a video that are captioned and takes longer to receive it but you'll have it. You just to have let us know when you need the video as soon as possible.

And I think when it comes to web content, I know Gallaudet University doesn't do a good job at making all of them accessible. And we have a live video captioned but I think it is a model of the University and colleges to follow. Simply because I just did a paper on [inaudible] the deaf and I got a lot of it from Gallaudet University video library. I think they are a great resource for that.

The other thing if you work in IT with the team you can ‑‑ they can support you and caption a video and you could add more space to the server. You can work into it. So working and getting efficiency and getting the video up there. The one thing that we want to do is make it available online. My idea is to make it available to any Professor or student that needs the access to the captioning will [inaudible] and Venetia, anything else that you want me to add?

>> Venetia: I'm curious you said you transitioned from working in a library to disability services. Just to hear that.

>> Speaker: Sure. The transition was actually ‑‑ one thing I started developing relationship in the library allowed me to develop a strong bond with the standing community and the way it works is you have a book and you want an electronic version of the book. We [inaudible] if the student gives us permission or we get a copy. Everything and then we get scan it and [inaudible] I call it DSS and e‑mail it to them and the books and I can tell when they're ready. Chapter‑by‑chapter. And once it is all ready for me I post it online [inaudible] but developing the relationship is the key.

When it gets to core services a year after that [inaudible] and you receive I can walk into the library and walk around and [inaudible] still part of the library. And he says and captioning services and it would be added to core services and the key to the library and when the student wanted to visit me and so that having the part of the services in the office, all confidentiality. The advice I would give you for adaptive services person in the library or someone similar to me who is also a tech video person. I think that mean the student wants to visit your faculty and you want to visit me about an issue that is confidential. And some people is a people person. They like to have the connection. They like to come in and engage with you and feel that you really care about them. And that is critical. And, so, my door is always open to folks. And so the other thing is the adaptive services lab is also very ‑‑ both our labs are in the library. And [inaudible] but the adaptive technology person or if you plan to be one, give them I.D. that is critical. Last thing that [inaudible] some other people really have a struggling developing a relationship and [inaudible] IT for special community events and that is very critical. That has [inaudible] in the office and, you know, again the relationship the office didn't have access to it.

One of the key things that they tell me, there are a couple of things in technology and computers in the library. I'll do you a big favor. I'm going to take them off your hands. Take it off your hand. You don't have to deal with all the other things, password to log in and that way you don't have to be bothered with that again. And that really helps. Some IT are okay with that and some are not. But the ones [inaudible]

I mean, I guess like I said, if I need a book at the last minute they'll give it to me. A book from the shelf, that relationship is good and they know who I am. All ‑‑ the other thing is we have books in certain sections that are reserved by professors. And you have two hour reservation. I have 24 hours. As long as I need it. I can take it from the reservation desk. Give it to the scanning department. They can scan it for me. That is a bonding relationship. They are not arrogant but they'll be pleasing and kind and just try not to be arrogant.

>> Speaker: Really interested in your relationship dealing with some of the same things. Figuring out how to get the books, disability services is kind of down the street from where the library is and so I'm sometimes running the books down there or we have a library to give service delivery and they'll deliver and we have that kind of worked out this semester, I guess. And also I'm interested in you were talking about converting the text. It seems like there is a lot of overlap between libraries and the disability services or whatever different campuses call it providing different kinds of text. Sometimes we're trying to provide a database that lets the person enlarge the text themselves or sometimes large print book or they may be doing some scanning for disabilities services might also be doing scanning but they're also trying to do those and ‑‑

>> Speaker: You know the scanning job just reminded me, this is again in relationship people scan. Try to be mindful honestly and as humanly as possible. They have so much to scan. During a semester they scan so many books for the professors and multiple professors and the articles and documentation. I just simply say listen [microphone please] and you did a good job. The 10 books and I'll do five. You have to be reasonable. I know that our citizens come [inaudible] that deal with disabilities have no other way of accessing this information. They use this service. At the same time you have to be reasonable to provide the service. So I think that kind of is like there are moments where I will a little scan book and all afternoon because I know it takes time.

The other thing about scanning if you have a personal scanner get familiar with the job build. Job build feature scan [inaudible] but you can get a lot of scanning. If you scan a page you print out a page, job build up you scan one side. You scan the page two. You keep building into one big PDF file or chapter‑by‑chapter that. Saves a lot of time. Because it doesn't [inaudible] one of the things that we use in our office. We use job build. That way you don't have to worry about scanning page by page each paper.

>> Speaker: I'm curious if other people who work in libraries are doing things with providing accessible PDFs or library is not much now except we're starting up an access repository and we looked into learning how to make the PDFs accessible for that. I have heard through e‑mail some are making their online reserves accessible. Anybody have any experience? Okay. That one doesn't have the cord.

>> Speaker: I can't tell you how we do it. That is not my job.

>> Cart Provider: Awesome microphone! Thank you.

>> Speaker: It is a standard for electronic reserves that they need accessible as far as we can do that. And we scan everything, course notes, pages, electronic media, everything.

>> Speaker: And how long have you been doing it and also what state ‑‑ what part of the library does it, too?

>> Speaker: Penn State University. It has been at least a year that we established the standard. It was something that the head of reserves and our coordinator for services for disabilities worked together on them and worked at it until they were able to do it.

>> Speaker: Do you know how many staff people are involved?

>> Speaker: We're way understaffed in LDS. I have people ‑‑ I have people there and we have an occasional part‑time person lent to us from the University office of disability services. During the summer we take an intern usually a high school student or a young college student with a disability and intern them in the workplace. Of course, course reserving is probably about eight people working at it.

>> Speaker: Wow.

>> Speaker: But we're doing everybody's reserving.

>> Speaker: Making them accessible in the process?

>> Speaker: Yes. We don't handle any of the scanning in the library. It is all reserve. I forget their name disability resources for students. One thing that we are exploring when people make a request for enter library load. I field that request form. Do they need it. They would make it accessible. They wouldn't have to go through disability services for that. And I'm curious because we did a panel survey with our students with disabilities and one thing that came up regarding reserves was that sometimes the reserve time is not enough for students with disabilities and then I'm curious how any of these ‑‑ how you are or if you are dealing with that issue because right now we just have the flat, you know, four hours, 24 hours. If there is one that deals with that. We did that session, too. If you are negotiating with database vendors on accessibility we had a group come into the library and a campus room and they call they can HAAK and they go through some of the software and databases and some are great. Some are horrible. The signer was absolutely horrible. I'm curious if any of you have tried to negotiate verbally talk to the vendors whether it is at their hall or other times.

>> Speaker: We plan to do that and actually I was going to put something [microphone please] and there were other groups that were interested in approaching these vendors as ‑‑ to apply pressure because if we try to do it in the past we will add it to the list. We don't hear anything any more and sometimes we have been writing an article and people don't like to appear in it and these are accessible. These are not. Really I think it is time that people be called to task.

>> Speaker: There are a few articles that are not real recent. The person I mentioned earlier Axil (sp) he ‑‑ his article is some ‑‑ way back in November of 2007 so it is not real recent. But he ‑‑ they did ‑‑ it was not just him. Another author and I can't remember his name. They did a survey of database vendors and their perspectives on accessibility and having known whether they complied with certain guidelines. But he has pointed out that it is not up‑to‑date by the time you do the survey and get the article out there. It is kind of out‑of‑date. He suggested having some other kind of social media format less formal where librarians could communicate. And taking his suggestion I started a wiki and I am not real happy with the wiki format because it is not easy to put things in there. Actually offered to just post things if people want to e‑mail instead of fussing with the wiki I would like to find a better way to do that. If you want to do that listserv I think that would be wonderful. I definitely agree with you, we need to work together. That came up also ‑‑ what was the name of the talk I went to on Saturday. The each book, same time, same place. It was about accessibility on E‑books, the kindle and everything. We got into talking about databases there, too, because there has been lots about the [inaudible] media lately and the suit against kindle and as librarians is the databases that the students are struggling with that I'm using. We got into talking about that at the forum and people from the reading rights coalition, a couple of them were there and I wish I could remember his name, Obama's representative. [inaudible] do you know his title, Venetia?

>> Speaker: He's President of Special adviser on disabilities. I don't know his exact title.

>> Speaker: Special adviser. Domestic policy special adviser. Anyway, I was impressed to hear from him. Some of those people also were kind of thinking along the same lines that it is really time like you were saying to put the pressure on the vendors and say that this is something that some vendors are trying to do some user testing but some of them are not ‑‑ and you said that you did ‑‑ you had a group come in and do some testing? Was that ‑‑ was that a paid proof or ‑‑

>> Speaker: They're just a group on campus that have I.T. guys and gals who come together and they come up with different ideas and so someone in a group might say in our case one of our librarians said hey, he is concerned about the accessibility of our databases. They came in and they had their laptops and putting different technologies on them and they were looking at the code. I didn't understand most of it. But they broke it down. I mean some came out as clear winners and others didn't.

>> Speaker: That is great you have people that know how to do that on your campus. Our IT is trying to learn some of the adaptive technology. Which school are you from?

>> Speaker: University of Washington. When you were talking about the open source software, we have a guy, Richard Ladner in the IT department and he and his grad students, Richard's parents were both deaf. So he's ‑‑ it is something that is dear to his heart. He and some of his grad students have come up with some prescreen‑reader technology and so they're hoping to get that rolling out soon.

>> Speaker: Anybody else have comments on that topic?

>> Speaker: I do. I think that is a face‑to‑face video. Is that right? Richard ‑‑

>> Speaker: They might have one.

>> Speaker: I heard about it.

>> Speaker: They have so many.

>> Speaker: I'm really excited about that because it is open. Face‑to‑face video we have the capability for 15 years and I don't know why it has not been done and then all of a sudden ‑‑

>> Speaker: Also I'm from Seattle and I have Ph.D. students and I took a bunch of classes and I'm going through the library school program. They have quite a bit of stuff that they're working on like for people that are deaf they have the mobile ASL project which is working a lot. We have a lot of restrictions in this country on video impressions and they're working on making it so that parts of what is being seen, the hands and face, are more visible and the rest of the body. It works better and translates better. They also have called read anywhere. It is an Internet based screen reader and it works with the Internet but requires absolutely no down loads. It can be used in public terminals and you can go and get to that website it boots up and then you can access the Internet and they do have a beta version out if you want to try it out. It is called web anywhere. One word.

>> Speaker: Back to the databases and E‑book stuff. I think it was a great idea. Wiki was not working out I'm thinking an online web forum that people can use to report problems or success with e‑resources and usually that stuff you can drive into it a database where you can post it somewhere. These are tested and these are the experiences and these are accessibility issues. I think some of the vendors just conscious raising or shame is a great motivator. You just publish the list. Keeps them for a reputable organization and these are the experiences we have in terms of accessibility that we have on the databases and electronic books and web‑based kind like net library and things delivered to portable viewing devices. I think that is a great service. I wish we could do that to make that happen. Make it simple.

>> Speaker: I use [inaudible] developer and I would be happy to build something for you.

>> Speaker: That would be wonderful.

>> Speaker: That people can enter things and it is [microphone please] totally accessible.

>> Speaker: That sounds wonderful. We can talk about it. The ACRL interest group and the lead interest group we can do projects. We have just been doing the discussions but I think that would be a great project ‑‑ for them and LITA and people want to do contributions and even people don't have ‑‑ a lot of us don't have enough experience to do such elaborate testing. The group she was talking about but even if you look on the vendors website and find out if they have that stuff and that is pretty much stuff that anybody can help and if anybody has users they can write their experience I don't think it has to be an expert analysis of the whole database. Just somebody's personal experience of what worked or didn't work as I think it is useful to get out there.

>> Speaker: I just want to share the experience I had yesterday. They are going to have a new user interface by the end of this year and they're going to start a preview for some of the libraries I believe in August. What I tried to do is basically ask them to show me their new design and everything and I just mentioned that to them how this is working and people with a screen reader they have a database and I think they understand that. Because I try to do some disability [inaudible] and I also asked them to provide me with their accessibility statement because at the university it requires a web presence that we use for our faculty students to be accessible. I do have to mention this is not the deal breaker. They make it accessible and maybe we can stop it and I also tell them if they cannot I do need to have that statement from them so I can report back to the University relation [inaudible] at the university.

>> Speaker: Just going back to a couple of things here. Mentioned from University of Washington and the longer loan periods for materials on reserve. One thing that the University of South Carolina does that has been helpful with some situations is scan and deliver service where the items that are actually on reserve are and ask in for a student and are put in through the library e‑reserves through our Blackboard system and that allows the students in the classroom to have the accessibility need to access those materials on 24/7 basis. It helps also with mobility challenges if we have physical access issues getting into the library. Particularly, unfortunately right now, we have a disability activist interest but it is not available for all of the hours the library is open. So the scan and deliver service does help compensate for that. It is an idea and also just a question that I'm wanting to discuss on a one‑on‑one basis or now if others have interest is to what extent ‑‑ I was so excited to hear from University of Washington that you survey students for their needs. This past year.

>> Cart Provider: Great microphone.

>> Speaker: We investigated the disabled patrons perspective and some of those students have been individuals mentioned that they had never been asked what was needed for accessibility. I'm curious how each of your institutions how that might be undertaken.

>> Speaker: I just wanted to answer your ‑‑ talk about what you just said but I also wanted to point out at Gallaudet for e‑reserves or course reserves and books in particular, we set up a patron book in Voyager so when something that is normally in our loan goes out to a student that has self identified. They tell us they need a longer loan period they get it. It is automatic at the desk. That is ease equipment nobody has to know. It is just sort of there and there it is. And regarding the survey, our struggle on our campus is that we can't get to them. Because we don't know who they are. And we have ‑‑ you know, until they self identify to us, we don't have a ways to and we have done some work, some general surveys and asked those kinds of questions and we just have not gotten much response. And it has been an on‑going frustration. We have a good relationship with our students with disabilities but they're not going to release that information. And you know we have worked with them and sent some information to them asking them to share it. We don't get much response. I think it is largely because on our campus, you know, at Gallaudet the nature of the disability is a little different. And the majority of our students with disabilities either have a visual disability or a learning disability. The learning ‑‑ the LD students do not want anybody to know they have LD. They just don't say anything. They don't want to tell anybody.

A lot of the students with visual disabilities are very satisfied with the services or I guess they're either satisfied with what they get from our students with disabilities or so dissatisfied they're just disgusted by it. So it is hard to find some middle ground with those students.

So it is that ‑‑ actually getting the students to ask what they need is a huge problem in our environment. I would be interested to know if ‑‑ what kinds of experiences the rest of you have with that.

>> Speaker: Hamilton is a small undergraduate institution and Weaver a lot of the same problems. Primarily visual impaired and learning disabilities students who don't tell us they have a problem until they need the textbook tomorrow and what we have been trying to do is work with the admissions office and ‑‑ they cannot tell White House the students are but they can push out to the students and patients as much as possible. We have a real epidemic of helicopter parents right now. So we have been trying to get the admissions office to tell the parents who the student needs to get in touch with. We have been trying to work it at that angle. We have had some success with that. We're still struggling with the students that come on Sunday and need the book Monday. It is not a textbook. It is out of the print.

>> Speaker: With respect to this we did this with our students the only way we were able to do that is working with the head of the disability resources and I basically sent her the survey and she sent it out to the e‑mail list of students who have used their office. I'm sure that is not, you know ‑‑ that is not all the students out there that we would like to hear from but it was the only way we found it could actually reach some and we did not have a great response rate. Their resources are no different than other students and where they used the library were no different. There were a few key issues of accessibility like I mentioned with the reserves.

>> Speaker: University of Washington also has a disability student group and when that survey came out the disability student group tried to help promote it which I don't know how other universities, if you have similar groups that help kind of do this, help with like the computer science department to testing for some of the stuff that they're going to help fine for the participants.

>> Speaker: I realize when I was going up I had a distinctive learning style and they just said oh he's a disruptive student. So today if we ‑‑ as I put on my technology hat if you put it on the web and I network with other disabilities or groups so you can have a unified index of tools. If you describe this in medical terms to have somebody say here. This is a stool that provides the following attribute and have nothing else and avatar that is speaking so as to protect the identity of the speaker. And they could describe how this particular technology isn't helpful to them. And we would like to see specific changes made that they feel would better address their needs.

>> Speaker: I'll add, I appreciate your point about making sure to listen to the students. I think that is something I hear pretty often, libraries and IT, universities are maybe trying to do some elaborate testing of a resource that is kind of esoteric that nobody is using and then there are different issues that are central to the students and there is kind of a disconnect sometimes the students are concerned that they're not able to get a book in an accessible format and people are having a lot of meetings talking about the ‑‑ figuring out how to make some new resource but some IT person has come up with that is really not using it and it is not accessible. I think it is really an important point to make sure to get in touch with the disability services office and it is one way to get in touch with students or we do have an active student organization on our campus called noncompliance. It is a useful way to get in touch with students to and personal communication is important.

>> Patrick: We're talking about student groups and accessible testing and I was thinking that we ‑‑ we talked before about accessibility camp and we wrote up notes how to make an accessibility camp. It is an opportunity to go to high‑level IT users and each one of those communities has a ‑‑ has motivation or a reason to want to get together. And it actually in that group [inaudible] our website for instance if there is an accessibility issue that would be a great group to start to volunteer. A lot of the high‑level AT users who know a little bit about web intensity but don't feel they get paid at the level the developer is getting paid there is a place to experiment with, you know, volunteer testing web pages and so that might be just ‑‑ we want to get the word out to the libraries so that the libraries can provide space for these meetings so when it happens there is a new group or location and people know each other from the groups and act on it and communicate with it. So that would be a resource.

>> Speaker: That is great. We should promote that as much as we can, I think.

>> Speaker: Venetia: I just have a question. You're all working in an academic environment where there are certain allowances under the copy right law for putting things into an accessible format. We're talking about universal accessibility. I'm thinking about reserves and aside from the issue of the time of the people who have to turn it into an accessible format, why is it not accessible to everybody for the time that they need it? Why should a student have to self identify as having a learning disability? Why can't it just be accessible so that they can get it and use it as long as they need to use it? Do you understand my question?

>> Speaker: I do, yes. I can say something, too.

>> Speaker: When you talk about reserves basically there are two kinds and ya'll correct me if I forgot something. You have the items on the shelf. Students have to come in and look at. Many of us do not post electronic reserves on some items we have in our collection because we don't have the staff to do it.

And it is different ‑‑ it differs in different environments with electronic reserves. And with our e‑reserves, those are available to ‑‑ they're available through Blackboard and most institutions which means it is limited to the students in the class and it applies for lots of hours and the stuff that is on the shelf that we're holding that the reason it is on reserve it is basically available to everybody. It might only be available for a two hour loan. Those are the things that we sort of try to make accommodations for.

>> Speaker: Was that your main question, a timing ‑‑

>> Speaker: Basically, yeah.

>> Speaker: I think, yeah. We have not had a formal policy of giving extended time but if people request it they can get extended time for the print reserves and for the online I think the issue is our administration and university administration has not decided to doing those and so it goes over to disability services still to make things accessible. It just takes extra time.

>> Justin: I would recommend that create liaison between the institute for electronic engineers and the American computing machinery extortion, ECM.org or iee.org. There are a number of engineers who have either themselves or friends or family who have special needs. And they'll ‑‑ as long as you quantify the problem or the issue of what you would like to have, it increases the probability that one of these folks would say, oh, gee, that is really simple. They would be able to help implement that and perhaps involve a product that would interest multiple people. Most of it comes through computers and it is in a digital form today. And that which isn't can be stamped and digitalized and it is worth a shot. I have not seen that in the past. Maybe it doesn't exist. But go for it.

>> Speaker: Over here. A comment.

>> Speaker: I guess I'm following up a little bit on Venetia's question because it was one that was of interest. When you guys started entertaining ‑‑ when you say print reserves it shows that I have been out of education for a while but is that everything that is available to students stacks or that is material that a Professor is saying this is in the library. You need to read it. It is the second one. I guess everything available in the stacks is the OPAL old‑fashioned student limited disability gets it and figures out how to get access to it either by photocopying the scans or photo copying it and taking it to DSS is that how that happens?

>> Speaker: It varies based on the institution. I would say, you know, in many cases library staff manage that for students. But the students have self identify. We go who they are when they tell us they need something, we get it over our officer students with disabilities and then they take care of making it accessible. At some institutions they have equipment in their own libraries to do it. And so that is the differential but yes it is generally when we talk about reserves we have professors at that say I want my students to have access to this video this semester that. Means we don't allow anyone to take it out for three weeks or four weeks, I don't know what our limit is. I think it is four weeks. That way it stays in the building and anybody who needs to read that Chapter can get it.

>> Speaker: Pass the microphone.

>> Speaker: I was going to say, you asked a question about [microphone please] I wanted to make it real consistent one of the issues we have problems with, a couple of things, one the Professor would not put it on reserve [microphone please] so you know something that has to get and ask as soon as possible. We don't ‑‑ we have lots of it here and some professors by nature it is student council and we

>> Cart Provider: He is very hard to hear. I'm sorry.

>> Speaker: That is what we do that. And which is in the same way the University benefits from the disability. They scan the book or they'll to have scan it and what I do is the syllabus. Again this is me. I get a copy of the student and access to the board and I ‑‑ week‑by‑week people call me for this Chapter and I'm on to the next Chapter. Some Chapters I go to great length and so our problem is it relates to this. And I have the book and not scan it. And one student, you know, and now we received the desktop or book and it is [microphone please] the University books are buying this checklist in large quantity and always make a lot of money and is it possible to the and keep in mind here make it available and obviously the copy right issue are toying with the technology all over. But you know, and we need a technician available or available to student and it only has access to them. We call adaptive ‑‑ and so that is ‑‑ any case we find the article and we find [microphone please] and so we can trap it. And have you heard of access text? And do you want us to share that? Access text, ACCESS and TEXT, it is a group of publishers that have gotten together and accesstext.org. A group of publishers that man together [microphone please] and so they used to be published material and HTML format. You can join them and [inaudible] tool and we simply put it in a q we don't have to use the name or the acronyms send in a request and it has a number there and you can wait a couple of days. No more than a week. You get a message bang back saying yes, we have both. Getting ready to be picked up. Click the link. You can do that. It is not available. Please contact it and not all the publishers and it is nothing major. And now, the university colleges that are struggling to use the books. I know the books [inaudible] who participate in the project. And I don't know if you know the book share link if you look [inaudible] and ‑‑

>> Speaker: Observation, the copy right act or however it is properly said is a little ‑‑ laws are made by people. They're legislators and encourages people to take an interest in who they choose for elected office and maybe in 10 years we can get rid of that. There is no good reason to have corporations with a strangle grip on your life. Like the outrageous interest rates of the card companies. They say hey it is legal. That goes back to body of law which is made by people. Think about it.

>> Speaker: The testing group we're talking about the wiki and how hard it was to use and we find that, too. I have ‑‑ we're a Public Library and we have a lot of accessibility issues, the keyboard or I wouldn't even know why you would want to use a computer in the first place. 90% of people are like that environment the people and there is a [inaudible] way and our web accessibility is a real possibility for creating simple rules like that. For instance for 15 years we had NetMeeting on the computer and nobody is using video phones in the country. I'm not quite sure. I'm speculating it has to do with algorithms that complicate things but you can't say and it would benefit for the corporations to come up with something else, it would be simple in open source or volunteer experiment if you can organize it, and so I don't know if we have any instances here but that kind of group of people could make a simple wiki. I don't know why there is not one out there. That makes sense. You can do it the first time or on an e‑mail. Make a simple e‑mail, please, that doesn't have anything complicated that my user could say get on there without ADA and get in there and not have things to worry about. Tools like that don't seem that hard to make. Come here, I can't do it but maybe other people can.

>> Speaker: I think that is an interesting point. I read an article about a group that tried to make a simple e‑mail interface and test to see if it was more useable and sure enough it was. I don't think it was an article that was written recently. I don't know that they actually made it readily available. Anybody have other topics that you had in mind that you didn't get to bring up yet? Lots of issues.

>> Speaker: Did you say that you would capture the community that is here today and put us in touch with each other?

>> Speaker: Yes. I'll send out ‑‑ I'll take the e‑mail list. Does somebody have the sign‑in sheet? If anybody didn't get it, there it is. I'll send out an e‑mail to everybody and give you our listserv. Somebody over there wants the sign‑in sheet. Okay.

>> Speaker: You said you started a wiki. You started a wiki.

>> Speaker: Yes.

>> Speaker: Do you want to ‑‑ I mean, if you wanted to like give me that wiki I could work with you and make it more robust and would you be interested in that?

>> Speaker: That would be great. She offered to do something in group hold that may be easier to use. Maybe you two want to get together.

>> Speaker: Do you want to get together and work on it? [microphone please] you have to find the rhythm. Once you find it like Patrick said maybe do like a fall or spring or summer thing where we try to get together at a web conference just to do that. No vendors, nothing. Just to do it. Okay. That is good.

>> Speaker: We did have a virtual conference the beginning of December last year. It was pretty well attended for more than the groups than we have gotten at the recent conferences and ‑‑

>> Speaker: And people soft on there, too. We can get online with that.

>> Speaker: Yeah, yeah. The software that he thank we used for the online conference was ALA connect and it dropped people out constantly so that was not great. So I volunteered the incoming convener to find other software and other people may have better ideas but I do on how to find software that would be freely available for people to use and accessible and not drop people out all the time. It is ‑‑ I didn't think it was freely available.

>> Speaker: It is not free.

>> Speaker: We ‑‑ here in the DC Public Library we have 25 seat auditorium that we purchase from Tom. And Tom has always been very accommodating that if you have a larger ‑‑ if you have an online subscription to his auditorium, if you made a larger venue for one event he's always been very accommodating about that I canning that happen. This OPAL online auditorium uses talking community software which is accessible to people who are blind. That is really I think one of the things that caused OPAL to be founded because Tom, would a lot with the libraries for the blind around the country. And ‑‑ I recommend this because it is really libraries are using it. If you go online you see that we're archiving this particular program right now. So anybody will be able to go to the OPAL website and listen to the ‑‑ listen to the presentation.

>> Speaker: That sounds good. I heard people say really only accessible and we should see if we can figure that out I think. How are we doing for time? We have a few more minutes until 10:00. Tom, you might want to address this. Marty is asking about whether we're going to be able to get the captions integrated into OPAL.

>> Speaker: Yeah, I had the same question. Evidently somehow we have to get like a transcript of this. So at the very least. I'll see if I can ‑‑ I might be able to put it back into the play back of the audio. But if I can't do that. The very least I can just create a link from the OPAL archive to the transcripts and you can have it up on the screen while you play it back, the audio portion.

>> Speaker: What about a live solution?

>> Speaker: We're talking about that, too. we're going to experiment ‑‑ you could actually pull the text, the captioning into the OPAL embedded browser. So that would just be one big thing. And I don't know if it would capture it in the recording or not. I would have to do some testing to see. But I think what ‑‑ one way or the other we'll get it either provide it, you know, side‑by‑side links to both of these or better yet weave into one seamless play back experience.

>> Speaker: 20/20 Captioning in Kansas is the provider of our remote captioning service that you see on the screen today.

>> Speaker: And, Tom, Jeanette Christian is the owner of that company and she has some ‑‑ she has some solutions. She's dealt with these issues before. So there may be an opportunity for some dialogue that will actually enhance accessibility of the OPAL website. We'll have to see.

>> Speaker: Justin.

>> Justin: I'm also a member of women in film and video, and I know that some of the people are using this type of technology also I witnessed it. So if you have a switcher or if you subscribe to a service that will download the proprietary software, you can then have three camera feeds or you can translate it to set the cameras, you can have three files that are displayed simultaneously on your control console which serves as a switcher and you condense the image that you wish to put out. You can also do sub images or split screens. So that provides you more options. And make it a point to find out the names of some of these things and all the information to us or probably through Patrick that. Way at least you'll be able to experience it if you wish.

>> Speaker: Okay. Well, we're about 10 minutes to 10:00. Maybe if nobody else has comments we could have time for a tour that Patrick suggested. Thank you very much, everybody, for coming in and contributing and I'll try to keep in touch with you and talk about future projects. Do you want to say anything else, Patrick, or Venetia?

>> Patrick: Thank you for coming, and room 215.

>> Speaker: Thank you again Patrick and Venetia.

This text is being provided in a rough‑draft format. Communication Access Realtime Translation is provided in order to facilitate communication accessibility and may not be a totally verbatim record of the proceedings.