#28: Some information is better than none →

Unfortunately, this tip is more from the ‘things I failed to do’ rather than the ‘things I managed to do’ list. When I worked at the Dallas Public Library, I managed a branch where approximately two-thirds of the household in its immediate neighborhood spoke Spanish at home. Very little of the system-wide communications were ever put out in Spanish. We had monthly meetings of all the branch managers, and it felt like every month the administrative or communications team would announce some new thing, I or a colleague at another Spanish-dominant branch would ask “Is this going to be available in Spanish?” and the answer would be no.

Something that was particularly frustrating was when existing inaccessibility was cited as reason something hadn’t been translated—think, “Most of our website is only in English, so if people only read Spanish they aren’t going to make it to this page in the first place.” But the more common reason was “Our translator/bilingual staff/web design people/social media team don’t have time for this because we have other priorities.” The idea seemed to be that since there ‘wasn’t time’ (this is arguable) to do a fully equivalent, word-for-word translation and set it up in its own online context, it couldn’t be done at all. The option of doing a basic, more simplified version was rejected before being considered.

My colleagues and I at the branch didn’t have much control over the library’s web presence as a whole, but we did add descriptions to our programs in the library’s online calendar. We often had a bilingual staff person include a Spanish version, and when we didn’t, we simply added the line “For more information, please call [library phone number]” in Spanish: “Para más información, favor de llamar a [library phone #].” At least that way, a motivated reader knew they could call us and talk to someone in Spanish to get the information.

Sometimes I wrote those blurbs myself, even though I am far from fluent. I know I made mistakes, and when my fluent coworkers had a chance to review my translations, they often changed a lot. It was hard to put myself out there and worry that I was embarrassing myself and the library by putting out something ‘wrong.’ Librarians tend to pride ourselves on accuracy. I had to remind myself that we also pride ourselves on access, and that my potentially hurt pride wasn’t a good excuse for making something inaccessible to many of my library’s patrons. I still often fail in that regard, but I’m less of a perfectionist than I was.

#27: Open your doors (or have a machine do it) →

My current library has automatic front doors—not the sliding kind that detect motion and open automatically, but the kind that have buttons that a user can press to open them. The doors have some kind of loose electrical connection and sometimes don’t open when the buttons are pressed. Every single time this happens, we submit a service request to the City’s Building Services Division. It’s driving their techs a little bit crazy because their department is understaffed and they have to take care of a lot of City buildings, but we do it anyway because it’s a high-priority issue for us. Water leaks and scraped up walls aren’t great, but they don’t prevent people getting into the library like broken automatic doors do. Every time the techs come out, either the doors work just fine, or the techs press the button over and over, harder and harder, until they work once, and then declare them ‘okay’ even though that is not how a member of the public (especially an elderly person or someone who otherwise doesn’t have very much strength) would use them. It makes me grind my teeth, but we’re doing what we can on our end to keep putting pressure on the people who can fix them until they get fixed.

At my previous branch, we did not have automatic doors at all. The library’s Facilities department asked each branch to submit a wish list for the new fiscal year, so of course the year I was there I badgered my boss to put automatic doors at the top of our list, but so far that branch has not gotten them.

I wondered how much it would likely cost the City to get them installed. I’d heard it was an expensive upgrade and I figured that’s probably why we didn’t do it. I did some research, and it was surprisingly hard to find estimates, I guess because there is big variation. However, it looks like it would cost somewhere in the range of $2,000-$3,000 for a simple kit that adds on to an existing swing door, or in the $5,000-$10,000 range for the full cost of converting a manual commercial front door into an automatic one including parts, installation, etc.

The most helpful thing I found was a 2017 estimate by the city of Alexandria, Virginia that it would cost a total of $10,200 to convert two sets of heavy doors on one side of their City Hall to automatic. The Dallas Public Library’s FY18-19 budget for operations (excludes money for materials, but includes money for staff salaries, utilities, building maintenance, etc.) was $26,442,249. I know from other reading that staff salaries are usually the majority of a library’s operating budget—let’s imagine here that they represent 70% of the budget, which would leave $7,932,675 for facilities costs. DPL is a large system and has a 10-story Central library and 27 other locations to maintain. If we treat the Central library as equivalent to 10 branches (1 floor about the size of one branch library), one branch’s fraction of that facilities budget is 1/37 of that money, or $214,396.61 per branch. If we assume it would cost Dallas about the same amount to install doors as it would have cost Alexandria, it would be about 4.76% of the Library’s facilities budget for my old branch for the yea to add automatic doors. 1/20th of the year’s facilities budget is pretty significant, given the energy costs and routine maintenance that I’m sure is necessary., but it seems doable, if not in a single year, than maybe over a few fiscal years. Obviously this is a real back-of-the-envelope calculation, but it gives you a general idea of the level of investment that upgrading to automatic doors would be. 5% of your facilities budget for the year seems like a good price to pay for making it easier for people with wheelchairs, walkers, and strollers to come in.

#26: Advertise services for blind readers →

This is another tip that comes straight from the Capital Area District Library in the Lansing, Michigan area. Lansing is the state capital and is home to the state library, the Library of Michigan, which maintains the Braille and Talking Book Library (BTBL) for Michiganders who can’t read standard print materials. The Library of Michigan was just blocks away from the Downtown Lansing branch of CADL, where I worked, but lots of their business is conducted by mail or email. I can’t actually remember how my library became a demo site for BTBL—if they approached us, if I pushed for it, if I took it on at someone else’s request, etc. I just remember the box of materials arriving in the mail with my name on them.

The BTBL has a well-established partnership program with public libraries to advertise their services. At first i was a bit confused by this, because I thought that most people who weren’t able to use regular print probably wouldn’t come in to the public library, so it didn’t seem like the advertising would be very effective. However, I learned two key things about how people commonly come to sign up for BTBL service: first, a lot of their clientele are older people who used to be able to read regular print but have lost the ability to do that over time due to age-related illnesses or injuries. Many of those patrons are regular users of a regular public library when they are younger, and transition to the BTBL as their abilities change. Also, especially among younger users, it is common for a friend or a family member to be the person who ‘discovers’ the BTBL and informs them of it—unsurprisingly, people who like to read tend to have family and friends who also like to read, and those people do see the BTBL advertising, and then tell their friends about it.

The Library of Michigan’s BTBL program is maybe a bit more extensive, but comparable, to what is available in other U.S. states. Once a person is enrolled as a patron, they can get:

• A ‘talking book’ player specifically dedicated to/designed for audiobook cartridges, and a pretty large selection of commercially-recorded audiobooks

• Downloadable audio via an online service called BARD

• Braille books, newspapers, and magazines

• Locally-recorded audiobooks on items of Michigan/local interest: for example, books by Michigan authors that may not be well-known enough for a regular audiobook to be produced, biographies of local celebrities,

• Locally-recorded newspapers and magazines

• Described video (DVD or VHS)

As an official ‘demo site’ for the BTBL, my library received a talking book player,a pair of headphones, a talking book audio cartridge (I think it was a Nora Roberts novel), a Braille book (Olivia by Ian Falconer), a bunch of posters and pamphlets about BTBL services, and a stack of applications for service. I also received the contact information of a BTBL employee who patiently, helpfully, and quickly answered any questions I had about the service and sent me more materials whenever I asked. It was great! We set up the demo materials on a little table by the reference desk and talked them up to any patron who expressed interest.

Something that is noteworthy about the BTBL and similar services is that not everyone qualifies for service. However, the BTBL’s requirements are pretty generous. You don’t have to be legally blind to use it. Here’s there description of what will qualify:

“Blind: Visual acuity of 20/200 or less in the better eye with correcting glasses or the widest diameter of visual field subtending an angular distance no greater than 20 degrees.
Visual Disability: Unable to read standard printed materials without special aids other than regular glasses.
Physical Disability: Unable to hold a book or turn the pages as a result of weakened muscle or nerve control due to strokes, arthritis, multiple sclerosis, polio, or other physical conditions that impair the use of arms or hands.
DeafBlind: Severe auditory impairment in combination with legal blindness.
Reading Disability: Organic dysfunction, such as dyslexia, of sufficient severity to prevent reading…”

(Source: https://www.michigan.gov/leo/0,5863,7-336-78421_28313_54234-221827--,00.html)

A ‘certifying authority’ checks one or more of those boxes on the application. Below the list of reasons is a small box for that authority to put in their name, occupation, and contact information, and to verify that they are not a member of the patron’s family. The application states that the certifying authority must be “a [professional such as a doctor, nurse, rehabilitation professional, counselor, therapist, or social worker.” It seemed to me like people with the first 4 conditions would probably have a relationship with a medical professional who would pretty easily be able to sign off on this application for them, but that reading disabilities were a bit more complicated. I contacted the BTBL and was specifically told that public library workers were indeed considered appropriate certifying authorities—meaning I and my coworkers (even my fellow paraprofessionals) could sign off on people’s applications! I never would have expected or known this if my library hadn’t become a demo site, and it was so helpful to know that we could provide an important help to patrons who wanted to sign up beyond handing them the application.

I never ended up signing someone’s application (I was only there about a year), but I definitely let people know about it the few times I handed out applications to people who were interested. Something that can be frustrating about being a demo site is not knowing when your referrals pan out. I don’t know for sure that we signed a single person up for BTBL service, but that’s an occupational hazard of public libraries—we are constantly sending people off to more specialized services, and we rarely end up hearing whether or not the person got the help they needed. I had to re-order promotional materials a couple of times, so I hope that meant it mattered to people.

I wrote in my last post about how I felt like implementing that tip (changing the holiday picture book display) had a reputational cost at work. I had the reverse experience with this tip, which fortunately I think is more typical. Since our Head Librarian knew about my interest in connecting our patrons with the BTBL, when an email about a local conference called '“Libraries Without Walls” came across her desk, she invited me to attend. Libraries Without Walls is an annual state conference about adaptive technology and its role in libraries, sponsored by the Michigan Bureau of Services for Blind Persons. I got to see Braille displays, learn about different screen readers, and meet both librarians and patrons who relied on those and other technologies to interact with print media. I learned a lot, and left feeling really inspired. Unfortunately, the conference doesn’t seem to have a website, but you can learn more about it from this press release from a later year than the one I attended.

The last thing I want to say about this tip is that it’s another example of how easy it is to forget the resources that are out there if you yourself don’t rely on them. Somehow, it was only when I sat down to write this post that it crossed my mind that I have no idea what Texas offers, and I’ve never seen a Texas public library that appears to be a demo site. I just looked it up, and when I go back to work later this week I plan to call the Texas State Library and Archives Commission’s Talking Book Program and see what they can tell me about what my library can do to help connect people to their services.

#25: Some holidays move →

From Emma:

This tip was, unfortunately, directly inspired by a problem at the Capital Area District Library where I used to work. Right at the front of the library, we had a table with a rotating book display. In December, whoever choose the displays had set up one for winter holidays—Hanukkah, Kwanzaa, New Year’s Day, and, of course, Christmas. To my confusion, I saw there were a couple of books on Ramadan* on the table, even though I remembered that Ramadan had been in the summer that year. I took them off and went to re-shelve them in their proper place, only to discover that our “Holiday” section in picture books appeared to be organized by when in the year the holiday fell, and that Ramadan books had their own tiny little area in between Hanukkah and Christmas.

Presumably what happened was that, when the library acquired its first ever picture book about Ramadan, someone unfamiliar with the holiday went to shelve it, didn’t know where it belonged, and looked up when Ramadan fell that particular year without realizing that those dates would vary from year to year since Ramadan is in fact the 9th month of the Islamic calendar year. The Islamic/Hijri calendar year is lunar rather than solar and is 11 days shorter than a Gregorian calendar year, so Ramadan ‘rotates’ around the Gregorian calendar months (or the Gregorian calendar months rotate through Ramadan, depending on how you look at it). Well-intentioned Judaeo-Christian librarians, not knowing better, might have been including Ramadan books in the winter holidays display for years before I noticed this.

I sent my boss a short little explanation of the problem, asked her to remind everyone to NOT include Ramadan books on our winter holidays display as Ramadan was currently in the summer, and then spent a long, frustrated time staring at the holiday picture books, trying to figure out a way to shelve them in a way that would prevent this from happening again. Ramadan is the main holiday that would be affected, but it’s not the only one—Hanukkah usually starts after Thanksgiving, but sometimes starts before, and Easter gets pretty complicated, especially if you have communities of Orthodox Christians and Western Christians who use your library.

At CADL, I ended up moving the Ramadan books to the very beginning of the section, and leaving Thanksgiving, Hanukkah, and Easter alone since the level of confusion and inaccuracy was a lot less severe, and because, frankly, I felt I’d already taken on a reputational cost by bringing this up (I am sure my colleagues were happy the change was made, but no one likes to be embarrassed) and I didn’t want to develop a reputation as some kind of PC culture warrior with no perspective. You could instead organize holiday picture books alphabetically, but that brings up its own set of problems (the accepted English spelling of Hanukkah/Chanukah being just one) and also isn’t very intuitive for small children.

The approach I like the most is interfiling holiday books with the regular collection and then pulling them out only as the holiday is approaching. Somewhat ironically, CADL did something like this for their holiday movies and music—the materials for upcoming holidays would be out on display and the materials for the rest of the year's holidays would be in closed storage and only accessible by request. While I was at the Dallas West branch of the Dallas Public Library, I helped our children’s specialist interfile all our holiday picture books with the regular picture book collection, based on her research about ow the collection was used, what circulation numbers looked like, and best practices at other libraries. They were identified by stickers on their spines, and prior to a major holiday she’d look through the collection and pull out enough relevant items to put together a display.

This tip was a tough one to implement for me, because some level of ‘calling out’ of colleagues I respected was unavoidable in order to address it. However, I’m glad I did it anyway. My coworkers reacted well, I learned something useful, and we corrected a pretty glaring indication of lack of consideration for one of the groups of people who used our library. By the way, Ramadan begins April 24 in 2020, if anyone would like to plan an appropriately-timed display or program at their library.

*Minor aside: Depending on how you define “holiday,” Ramadan might not actually be one. You might say that Eid Al-Fitr, which is technically right after Ramadan ends, is the actual holiday, but most picture books I’ve encountered cover Ramadan and Eid-Al-Fitr together, as continuous parts of a single cultural/religious practice.

#24: Don't forget the simplest things →

From Emma:

The original text of this post is: “When it’s your turn to shovel the library sidewalk, shovel the ramp, then the stairs. Not the other way around.” It was copied blatantly from a 2002 comic by Michael Giangreco and Kevin Ruelle, showing a group of kids, one in a wheelchair, waiting at the bottom of an entrance to a school. An adult is shoveling snow away from the stairs. The kid in the wheelchair asks the adult to shovel the ramp, to which he replies: “All these other kids are waiting to use the stairs. When I get through shoveling them off then I will clear a path for you.” The kid in the wheelchair then points out: “If you shovel the ramp, we can all get in!”

Apologies for not including the comic—I could find lots of copies of it floating around online, but I couldn’t find any copyright information that suggested it would be okay for me to use it. That said, there’s an interesting article on Giangreco, who is a special education scholar and advocate, on the University of Vermont’s website. It includes the comic, and I hope I can trust a public university website to handle copyright considerations appropriately: https://www.uvm.edu/uvmnews/news/new-book-explores-how-bring-education-research-public

Anyway, this tip is simultaneously very easy and very difficult to implement, depending on how you read it. On a literal level, I’ve actually never had to shovel the entrance to the library (I only ascended to being in charge of a whole building after I returned to Dallas, and we’ve never had that much snow), but I have kept in mind that ramps and elevators are better than stairs, and made sure that they are higher priority and the first to be opened if I can’t have both. My current library is single-story and does not have steps leading up to the building, but it is higher than street level, and the sidewalk up to the front door slopes upward at what might or might not be steeper than a 1:12 ratio (1” of rise for every 12” of horizontal length, the steepest slope that is compliant with the Americans with Disabilities Act). It has a railing which I check fairly regularly to make sure it’s still in good shape. It’s pretty simple and sort of the classic example of universal design.

Looking at it another way, though, the comic and tip also point to having a certain mindset—they tell you to always keep accessibility and universal design in mind, which is much harder for someone like me, who rarely has first-hand experience with the challenges and frustrations of poor accessibility. I don’t have a physical disability and neither does anyone in my local social circle, so I don’t have anything to ‘naturally’ keep the importance of universal design top of mind. Thinking about this tip really brought home to me how important it is, when you are planning any accessibility initiative, to include people from the groups it’s intended to help. I obviously read a lot about this stuff, but I learn the most from talking to my regular patrons who use wheelchairs and walkers, and from watching them interact with our library’s space. Eventually, my library will be remodeled or replaced, and my dream planning committee absolutely includes those patrons. Of course it’s always important to include ‘end users’ in a design process, but that seems especially vital from an accessibility perspective.

#23: Consider your language rules carefully →

From Emma:

I thought of this tip when I was shelving near a table where a couple of patrons were sitting and chatting, and one of them said to the other “Daaaamn, girl!” I’d just come out of a staff meeting where our branch manager had emphasized the importance of intervening early in code of conduct issues before things got out of control, and the vital-ness of being consistent so that we would be fair. I thought “Should I say something to that patron? Tell her that she can’t say ‘damn’ in the library?” However, even I, basically a demographic caricature of a librarian, know that one black lady saying “damn, girl!” to another black lady isn’t offensive, regardless of what might be on any pseudo-official list of curse words/swear words/’offensive language’.

I didn’t say anything to the patron, and instead I went back and looked up exactly what the library’s policy said about language in the library. It turns out that in Texas it’s based on a state legal code, which says that people are prohibited from: “Making offensive gestures, cursing or using obscene, abusive, profane or threatening language.” I looked up the section of state law this was pulled from, and the wording there is similar: “A person commits an offense [of disorderly conduct] if he intentionally or knowingly” “uses abusive, indecent, profane, or vulgar language in a public place, and the language by its very utterance tends to incite an immediate breach of the peace.”

I’m not a lawyer, but it looks to me that there's no explicit definition of what constitutes ‘abusive, indecent, profane, or vulgar language,’ only an implicit definition that it’s anything that ‘by its very utterance tends to incite an immediate breach of the peace.’ (If anyone with more expertise wants to weigh in on how the legal side of this works, I’d be thrilled!) That seems encouraging. Since routine use of profanity that isn’t directed at hurting someone—like '“damn, girl” or “shiiiiit” (as an expression of surprise)—definitely doesn’t tend to incite an immediate breach of the peace, I can let it go in the library without having to defy a provision of our code of conduct.

Now I’m a branch manager and I feel comfortable telling my staff that they need to allow language like that regardless of their personal feelings. Working in a public library means being exposed to things that you don’t agree with and sometimes being exposed to things that make you uncomfortable, but I don’t have any hesitation telling someone that they can no more tell a patron they can’t talk in a way that’s A) normal in their culture and B) not hostile to any other person than they could refuse to help a patron because she was wearing a button saying she supported a political candidate that they opposed.

That said, I think where the problems might arise would be when other patrons from different backgrounds are listening. For example, I can see some parents objecting to that kind of speech in the children’s area of the library in front of their children, and I’m not sure which side of the fence I’d come down on there. Similarly, adults who come from a different background and haven’t been exposed to that way of talking might feel offended by it, and the discomfort they’d experience would be genuine even if it came from a place that wasn’t very open-minded. So far I’ve been able to handle the few situations like this by finding physically distinct places for each group in the library and reminding the talkers to speak quietly, but I don’t have a good answer for what I’d do if that wasn’t workable.

Once I started thinking about the specifics of the language rules in our code of conduct, that of course made me think about words that aren’t universally considered ‘profane, indecent, or vulgar,’ but can for sure be used in a way is ‘abusive’ or that ‘[tends] to incite an immediate breach of the peace.’ Namely, words that can be used as slurs but aren’t always slurs, depending on who says them and how they are used—often words that started out as slurs but are in some stage of being reclaimed. That ranges from ‘gay,’ which is mostly used as a completely normal word without drama but which still gets used in a completely not-appropriate-for-the-library-or-anywhere-really way as an insult by some bigoted people, to the n-word, which probably still shouldn’t be used in the library at all due to how sensitive some people in the targeted group might reasonably be to it, but could elicit a staff response of anything from “You’re a hateful person and you’re banned from the library for as long as I can swing it” when used by a racist to “Hey, just wanted to remind you guys that not everyone is cool with that word even how you guys are using it, so please don’t say it in here” when used by a bunch of black teenagers.

I often feel unqualified to be producing this blog, but rarely have I felt as unqualified as I do with navigating things like this. I’m just not the right person to be deciding what is and isn’t appropriate library language, and, while I’m maybe more unqualified than most since I’m so thoroughly a member of the dominant culture in my area, probably no single person is qualified on their own. If we ever revise our code of conduct at my library, I’ll definitely try to make sure that this is something that gets looked at closely, and that the library gets input from a diverse group of people about it.

#22: Check your icons →

From Emma:

This tip is something I learned from a coworker at the Capital Area District Library when they replaced the sign on our accessible public computer station (yes, the fact that we had a single, designated one is sub-optional for sure). The traditional ‘disabled’ or ‘accessible’ icon in the United States looks like this:

Pictogram of person seated upright in wheelchair, no arms visble

The one advocated by the Accessible Icon Project looks like this:

Pictogram of person in wheelchair leaning forward, arms behind to push chair

In the second image, the person using the wheelchair is pushing themselves, rather than passively waiting to be pushed. It’s not a huge design difference, but it’s a clear one, and taking the time to learn that the new icon exists and update your signage is a clear way to signal that you care about this stuff.

I took a look around my library for instances of this image and noticed that we very rarely use pictograms of any kind anywhere. Normally I’m pro-pictogram, but in this case it was good news since there weren’t a bunch of old-style icons that needed to be replaced. In fact, the only places where we have this pictogram are the handicapped parking spots—both on the signs and painted on the ground in the spots. The signs are in good shape and as much as I’d like to get new ones with the new icon, I suspect they would be hard to get (both because they don’t seem to be widely available on the market and because I know our city has some pretty restrictive contracts for signage) and I’d rather use the money for higher-priority accessibility changes in my building, such as:

• Fully-bilingual English/Spanish signage in the interior of the library

• Replacing the frequently-out-of-order automatic front doors

• Barrier-free access to our public restrooms

However, both the handicapped icons and the stripes themselves on the surface of the parking lot are pretty faded. I suspect we will soon be due for repainting, and when that comes up, I will definitely ask if the icons can be repainted in the new style.

Although I wasn’t really able to act on this tip, I’m still glad I tried it out because it made me examine my signage carefully (You would think I do this a lot considering my interests, but there is just so much of it in libraries! I am always discovering new stuff I forgot to review.) and because realizing that I wouldn’t prioritize replacing the handicapped parking signs made me think a little more formally and rigorously about what I would prioritize. I have an accessibility wish list for my branch in my head, or at least I think of myself as having one, but I didn’t previously have one on paper that I could use to guide my interactions with our Facilities team and with library administration. Now, I’m sitting down to write one that I will be able to whip out if/when money becomes available to make some of these things happen.

#21: Serve the people who can't come in →

From Emma:

I have mixed feelings about how we are doing in this area at my current library. On the one hand, I’m proud of what I accomplished and think it’s significant, but it also really highlights what a long way most libraries have to go. Before I talk about my project, I want to mention a few other initiatives I’ve seen or heard about at other libraries:

• Chicago Public Library lets you submit a scanned copy of your ID to sign up for an “eCard” that lets you access databases and ebooks, eaudiobooks, etc. without ever setting foot in a library branch. Obviously most people don’t have scanners at home, but many people have a friend or family member who can get their ID scanned on their behalf (they may take a photo, also—the website doesn’t say much and you can’t test it without providing a Chicago address.)

• The Capital Area District Libraries did ‘books by mail,’ which is exactly what it sounds like. Patrons had to provide extra documentation attesting that they couldn’t physically travel to the library, but once they did they could get materials mailed directly to their homes. You know I’m generally against barriers to entry, but this was an expensive program to run so I understand why they needed to keep it restricted.

• Many libraries take responsibility for stocking ‘libraries’ elsewhere in their neighborhoods: at rec centers, at senior centers, and in those Little Free Libraries you see in people’s front yards and in parks. This can be a great use of donated books that you don’t want to add to your collection, and can double, triple, etc. the number of places people can go to access books—someone may not be able to walk five blocks to catch a bus to your library branch, but may be able to take the shuttle from the front door of their assisted living facility to the front door of the senior center, which contains a little in-house library.

Dallas Public Library does not do books by mail or have a bookmobile anymore, or do real online cards (they will issue you a temporary one so that you can request items and then finish your card signup when you come to pick them up), but we do support a lot of small book collections around town. At my previous branch, we also started a small ‘pop-up library service’ at three local senior housing complexes. This was my initiative, but I was fortunate to have my manager’s support and administrative support.

Our library management system (Polaris Leap) is web-based, so it can run on laptops, tablets, etc. without the software loaded onto it. Each DPL branch has a Microsoft Surface. I would take the Surface and a rolling cart full of popular books, DVDs, and audiobooks, to the common room of a senior center on a specific day at a specific time. While there, I could sign people up for library cards (if the place had wifi), check out the materials I’d brought to them, and accept returns from my last visit.

Here are the details:

• Our normal loan period is three weeks for books and one week for movies, but I got special permission to extend these loans to approximately 4 weeks (i.e., to my next visit).

• Because I knew overdue items were a risk, I tried to take items that, while popular, were a little bit older, so that they were unlikely to have hold requests on them as the due dates approached. Our system automatically renews items two days before the due date if there are no requests on them, so this avoided most overdue fees.

• Since I couldn’t issue receipts, I pre-printed bookmarks with the message: “Your items are due at the next library visit, on DATE from START TIME to END TIME. You can also return them any time before that at LIBRARY ADDRESS. If you need help or want to keep them longer, please call LIBRARY PHONE NUMBER.” For each checkout, I’d give the patron a bookmark and write the number of items they’d borrowed on the bookmark for their reference.

• One location could accommodate me for a proper visit only every two months, so at that location, the social worker collected everyone’s books at the front desk, and I’d swing by on the off months just to pick them up (I had to modify my due date bookmarks accordingly).

This was mostly a gratifyingly easy and frankly fun program to do. I got to know some of the regular patrons, and also found that some of them who were more mobile started coming to the branch—once they had had a good experience with the library, they were more motivated to get there for additional visits. I did have only a small selection to choose from, but I pretty quickly got a sense of what was popular and what wasn’t, so I was able to tailor my pool of materials to each location. I did not place or deliver hold requests because it just wasn’t feasible with the pace of how the holds process normally works, but I made notes if people asked me about particular titles or authors and tried to bring those materials on my next visit if they were available.

The biggest hurdle I ran into was that I had no way to take cash payments or do other things to clear people’s cards if they were blocked. Lots of the people I visited owed the library too much money to be able to borrow materials. We do have the option to pay fines online, and I could help walk patrons though that on my tablet, but that requires a credit or debit card and lots of the patrons at the places I was visited didn’t have those, or they were on a fixed income and just couldn’t afford to pay. (Dallas has since abolished overdue fines, and I think that would make this easier if I were to start this up again now at my ‘new’ branch.) What I ended up doing was filling my tote up about 75% of the way with library materials, and using the remaining quarter of the space for donated books, which I would give away to people who showed up to the library visit and owed too much money to check out, or who weren’t able to sign up for cards (lack of the needed paperwork to get a card was also an issue, especially since many of these patrons no longer drove so they did not have drivers’ licenses.). Obviously it wasn’t a perfect solution, but at least I was able to offer something to those residents.

All in all, this was a very easy program to implement. It does require some equipment, namely a car (in my case, I used my own car and did not claim mileage, but the city would have reimbursed me if I’d bothered to file the paperwork) and, ideally, a computer with your LMS so you can do live card sign-up and checkout. You could do everything on paper and go back and enter it after your visit, but that would be a LOT more work—I did it once or twice when I couldn’t access wifi, and it was much more time-consuming (not to mention I ended up finding that some of the people who had signed up for cards already had them, and owed enough money that I shouldn’t have checked them out). If you want to do this and have to do it on paper, I’d strongly recommend taking a two-person team on your visits.

#20: Have visual alarms →

From Emma:

My current library has visual alarms—I suspect it’s required by building codes in many places. The Dallas Public Library Facilities team constantly impresses me with how hard they work and how much they are open to trying to improve accessibility even though they are constrained by very limited resources, so I also think that if we hadn’t had visual alams, I could have asked and they would have found a way to make it happen. As it was, though, I was able to test this when the professional fire inspectors came to do their annual inspection of our system. I walked around with my fingers in my ears looking at the ones on the public floor, but I suspect there was more formal testing by the inspectors and the results never got back to me, which happens often when we pass an inspection.

Since this tip’s description was so simple, I thought I’d also mention how I came up with it: I looked into ADA compliance resources for private businesses. Websites like that were one of the first places I started looking for accessibility ideas, but I actually didn’t find them all that helpful in most areas because they tend to be focused on ‘what is the minimum we can do to be compliant with the law?’ rather than ‘what is the maximum we can do to make our facilities and services usable?’ but safety concerns seem to be an exception—the problems seem to be a bit more all-or-nothing, and since it is a safety issue the regulations seem to come down on “all” rather than “nothing.” For example, I believe these alarms are required (at least, if you touch your alarms system to make any other changes, you have to add visual alarms if you don’t already have them), but your aisles don’t have to be wide enough for wheelchair access—apparently having a staff member retrieve requested titles is a ‘reasonable substitute’ for patrons in wheelchairs who want to browse the collection (no it isn’t, but I am not a lawyer or a legislator…).

Safety stuff like this also seems like a great area to be able to call on a professional, if you have one available. One of the things on my mental to do list is to see if we can get someone from Code Compliance, or someone else with expertise, to come out and review our branch. I like to think I’m doing a good job, but I’m sure they would spot things I missed.

#19: English isn't the national language →

From Emma:

This tip is more or less what got me writing this blog. I’ve been interested in the topic since library school, where one of my favorite instructors sent all of us out to do an ‘accessibility audit’ of our own neighborhood libraries. That audit was eye-opening in a horrifying way and it had been on my mind as a topic that deserved more attention on and off since then. However, what made me start making the list of tips was starting a new job where the non-English materials sat below a big sign that said “Foreign Languages.” I happened to walk past that collection on the path between my desk and the reference desk, and I probably walked by about 100 times before the absurdity of it finally struck me.

Very nervously, I broached to my boss that “foreign languages” probably wasn’t a great term since many of the people who used those books had lived in the area a long time, maybe since birth, and definitely were American. She thought about it for a moment and then admitted that she had just never thought about the name and that yes, she agreed it should be changed.

That particular collection was composed of several tiny sub-collections, each in a different language, so we couldn’t just re-label the section “Spanish/español” or “Russian/Ру́сский язы́к “ or whatever. We couldn’t think of a good all-encompassing name to put on a new sign (“Non-English” being awkward and “materials in other languages” being long and maybe not very clear), so what we ended up doing was just taking the sign down. The regular users of those collections already knew where they were (they’d been in the same part of the building for more than a decade), and because the collections were so small relative to the rest of the library, the reality was that people didn’t come across them via browsing anyway, even with the old sign—users who wanted them ended up asking for help at the desk and being walked over to the shelf.

My boss at the time was a progressive, thoughtful person of color who worked on the #WeNeedDiverseBooks initiative. Her colleagues were excellent librarians who I admired for their committment to making everyone welcome in the library. The fact that they walked by this sign literally thousands of times and its inappropriateness never occurred to them is a testament to how hard this stuff is. I wasn’t a better, more aware person than my colleagues were, I happened to be the one to spot it, and I wondered what all of us were walking right past that no one had been lucky enough to see yet. Especially because of the pretty severe problems that librarianship has historically had with diversity, very few people are likely to spontaneously notice things like this because they don’t affected white, middle-class, abled, native English-speaking people directly. The few librarians who don’t come from a privileged background shouldn’t have to bear the burden of fixing this stuff—it’s everyone’s responsibility. As public servants, it’s our job to notice because it affects the public even though it might not affect us.

I went online and starting looking for some kind of checklist, something like the accessibility audit I’d had to do in library school, but that covered way more than the physical barriers the accessibility audit had focused on identifying. I wasn’t looking for anything that would seem revelatory on the face of it, just for a tool that would help me spot stuff like our “Foreign Languages” sign before walking past it 100 times. I obviously didn’t have a lot of luck with that. There are some checklists out there, and I encourage you to do your own searching (I still do), but there wasn’t anything approaching the comprehensive list I was imagining. That’s more or less why this site exists now.

I’m sure I still walk by metaphorical “Foreign Language” signs all the time. If you’ve seen any that I haven’t, I’d be grateful if you’d point them out.

#18: Beginning readers come in all ages →

From Emma:

Figuring out something we can do for adult beginning readers has been a challenge for me at my current job. We have, more or less, three groups of people who would want to use them: native English speakers who didn’t become proficient English readers as children, native Spanish speakers who didn’t become proficient Spanish readers as children, and native Spanish speakers who are proficient Spanish readers but who are just starting to learn to read in English. We have a lot more resources for groups 1 and 3 in our system than we have for group 2 (this is, of course, a theme in many American library services).

Something that’s cool about the Dallas Public Library is that there is a whole department dedicated to adult learning, and one of the things they cover is reading education for adults. We display a poster about their services in our branch library, which I appreciate not only because it advertises the service but also because it says to adults learning to read “hey, we know you guys exist and we want to help you” before they even talk to a staff member.

So when I was thinking about what we could do for these patrons, the first thing I did was call up the team that administers the adult literacy program and find out from them who they could and couldn’t assist. It turns out they currently only work with English speakers (of intermediate to fluent level), and that their services are targeted at adults who are at an elementary-school reading level or below. That lets me know that my branch should probably focus on Spanish-speaking beginning readers, since we don’t really have other options for them in the system.

Putting together a reading list of appropriate Spanish-language material is tough, since our collection is frankly not all that great. Like many American public libraries, we buy our materials solely through a large book vendor that mostly works only with major American publishers, so their Spanish-language offerings are not great. Since we have also pretty much outsourced our cataloging and pre-processing to that vendor, it’s hard to order things from other companies to add to our collection since we don’t have much of a structure in place for getting them shelf-ready. As an individual staff member, there’s not a lot I can do about that. We have had a few management team meetings where we have talked about the collection and where it is or is not meeting patrons’ needs, and I have brought up this problem (I’m certainly not the only one to do that) but beyond reminding library administration how important it is, I’m stuck with what we have.

Ironically, one of the limitations of our Spanish collections I think is actually a strength for new adult readers. Because our Spanish collections are so small, most branches, including mine, interfile their teen materials with their adult materials. It's not good service to teens who want to read in Spanish, but I think it’s good for adult patrons who might not be able to handle a book targeted at completely fluent readers. Without making themselves conspicuous by going into a separate area, they can choose a book targeted at teens that has simpler vocabulary, more concrete language, and maybe pictures that assist reading comprehension. I especially like this because it helps anyone struggling with reading, not just people who know they are not at an ‘adult’ reading level, since they can all stumble across teen titles ‘organically.’

So, I think what I have left that I can currently do is make a list of suggested titles (ideally one for English and one for Spanish, but starting with Spanish) that we can give to self-identified struggling readers. I am a bit intimidated about making the Spanish one since I am not a fluent reader in Spanish, but my branch currently has a library assistant who is an intermediate Spanish student who might be great for this. She is new to our branch and to librarianship, so I think having her look through the shelves and identify some titles would be a great way for her to get to know our collection, and she can use some of her own limitations as a guide to help identify good candidates for beginning readers. It may be a short list since our collection isn’t very deep, but at least it gives people somewhere to start from.

#17: Learn from the best →

From Emma:

This exercise is a little more informal and less clear-cut than a lot of the others, so I’ve practiced it several times with varying degrees of focus. Since the library where I work now and the one before that both had gone to a one-desk model with circulation and reference staff sharing a space, I’ve had a lot of opportunities to listen to how circulation staff members interact with patrons. There are compelling arguments both for and against the one-desk model, and I don’t want to come down on one side or the other overall, but anecdotally, something I’ve noticed is that having two staff members at the same service point seems to encourage them to be more welcoming and patient with patrons than they might be on their own. In my experience, the ‘worse’ staff person seems to behave better when her ‘better’ colleague is in earshot, rather than the ‘better’ staff member dropping down to her ‘worse’ colleague’s level. Not the point of this post, but an interesting thing to think about.

Anyway, the thing I have personally noticed that my coworkers do effectively that I don’t do is wait comfortably in silence. I am proud of my ability to adapt my vocabulary and communication style to patrons and my reference interview skills, but I am not good at long stretches of quiet while I wait for a patron to respond or to be ready to do something. If I ask a question and don’t get a pretty immediate response, I tend to feel like I am failing the patron, and I have a strong urge to rephrase and repeat what I said, or to offer a different suggestion because I assume that the patron didn’t understand or like my initial question or answer. However, from watching my coworkers, I’ve observed that some patrons just need more time to process what I’ve said, and giving them new inputs, however helpfully it is intended, just distracts them and slows them down. This is the case not just for patrons who might have developmental disabilities, but also with patrons who might have another reason to need to think about communication a little more, like someone talking to you in her second language or someone whose hearing isn’t great so he needs to consciously infer what exactly you said to him.

So far I’ve been doing my “learn from the best” observations covertly rather than explicitly. I’m a supervisor right now, so asking a coworker directly for their insights takes on a bit of a different tone than it would if I were asking peer-to-peer. I’d be grateful to hear form anyone who straight-out asked a coworker how they do it and how that conversation went.

#16: Have a plan for teen parents →

From Emma:

This potential accessibility issue was brought to my attention by someone asking a question on an online forum. Her library had a policy that a minor could only be issued a library card if a parent or other legal guardian signed a consent form. A teen parent came in with a baby, wanting to sign the baby up for a card. Of course the parent is the legal guardian, but she herself was also a minor, so the librarian wasn’t sure if that might complicate the legal situation. She worked for a public library and ended up taking the question to the city attorney’s office to make sure the library was staying compliant with any relevant laws and city guidelines.

Reading her problem made me realize that I really didn’t want to think about this for the first time with a family standing right in front of me. I’m sure it’s already often no fun as a teenage parent to tell people in authority how old you are—the last thing I want is to make it more awkward by implying “Wow, your situation is so unusual, I have no idea what to do! See how your presence in the library is causing us inconvenience?”

I went to the head of circulation at the library where I was working at the time and asked about our policy, only to be told that basically there was no policy, and we’d cross that bridge when we come to it. I ended up moving library systems fairly soon after that, so I wasn’t able to follow up on it. Dallas Public Library, where I work now, issues cards to anyone who is old enough to have some form of picture ID, including people below the age of majority, and issues cards to kids with a legal guardian’s ID as long as the kid is present. So, I figure at my current job this shouldn’t be an issue as long as Mom or Dad has a school ID or driver’s license, which will probably be the case. If the parent doesn’t have an ID, we won’t be able to issue the card, but that would be true if the parent were 18 or older anyway, so at least we are being consistent.

Something that has surprised me about working in multiple library systems in different states is how much variation there seems to be in how cards for minors are handled. I would have thought that the commonalities in state and federal laws would have led to rules that were more uniform, but that doesn’t seem to be the case. I’ll have to add this to my long mental list of questions I’d love to ask a well-informed lawyer someday.

#15: Go on a treasure hunt →

From Emma:

I think this one is useful for pretty much anyone. Libraries tend to hoard, so if you take a look in your supply closet you’re almost guaranteed to find something that isn’t being used to its full potential, even if that thing isn’t exclusively accessibility-related. My most regular find is a new keyboard, with nice, legible letters on each key. I understand why extra keyboards are kept in storage—it’s good to have one you can swap out to troubleshoot problems and identify which hardware is the problem—but to me it always makes sense to keep the worst, most worn keyboard in storage and leave the best ones out on the floor for patrons to use.

The best thing I ever found wasn’t technically in storage, but it was very neglected. It was in the microfilm room and it was sitting on a table all by itself with no signage or instruction manual, not even a chair. It was a SARA (Scanning and Reading Appliance). You use a SARA by setting any page of printed text on the camera bed. The machine uses OCR to ‘read’ the words, and a synthesized voice reads the text aloud. It’s a $2,000 piece of technology, and only one of my colleagues knew we had it and had a vague idea of what it was. I cleaned it up, found its instruction manual online and played around with it to learn how it worked, got it a pair of headphones, and repositioned it out on a public area with signage explaining what it did and how to use it. The whole thing took about two hours, and at the end everyone on staff knew what it was and were able to direct patrons to it.

If your library has $2,000 lying around(ha!) and you don’t find a SARA lurking in your back room, you might want to take a look at the latest model here and consider adding it to your accessibility tools.

#14: Get a readable keyboard →

From Emma:

This one doesn’t take a lot of thinking, or a lot of money. I bought a large print, high-contrast keyboard for a previous library where I worked for about $20, and a set of Braille overlay stickers for about $10. My branch manager at the Downtown Lansing branch of CADL sent me to a conference called “Libraries without Walls” (it was excellent and you can read more about it here) which was all about accessibility tools for people who are legally blind. I learned a lot and I really recommend going to something similar, if you have a chance, and trying to make it possible for your staff members to go if you are a manager. At that conference, I learned about screen reader options, braille tools, and a few different surprisingly cheap and widely-available technologies that my library could afford to add to our tools right away.

At CADL, we had a designated accessible computer station with a higher clearance for electric wheelchairs, and we installed the large print keyboard there and I stuck the braille overlay stickers on it. It was rarely used by legally blind users, but it proved popular with users who had some vision impairments and/or who weren’t familiar with a standard keyboard layout, because they found the letters easier to spot. I found that the braille stickers were helpful for patrons who were learning how to touch-type—most of our standard keyboards had the raised marks on the ‘f’ and ‘j’ keys worn away, so the patrons couldn’t feel when their fingers were in the right place on the home row, but with the stickered keyboard, people could learn by feel as well as by looking.

Interestingly, at Dallas Public Library, each branch has a large print keyboard (the exact same brand and style as CADL had, by the way) as well, but it’s kept behind the desk and can be plugged into any public computer that a patron who needs it is already using. I am glad I’ve gotten to see both ways of making the keyboard available, because I couldn’t have intuited which would work better. At CADL I was a bit frustrated that people who needed the good keyboard would have to be segregated into their own special computer, and have to ask staff to have access to it (we tried leaving it so anyone could use it, but patrons who didn’t have impairments kept choosing it over regular machines because it had more space around it than the regular ones did, so it was almost always in use by someone who didn’t need it and rarely available for those who did). Initially, I thought the Dallas system would be better because patrons could use it where they already were, but instead what happens in that no one knows the keyboard exists and it just gathers dust behind the desk. I think at our branch I am going to try putting it out at one of our regular machines—I know that that means sometimes someone who needs it will come in and it will be in use by someone who doesn’t, but each approach has its trade-offs, and I think overall that the resource will be more well-used if we put it out.

#13: Take care with heritage displays →

From Emma:

This is a tough one for me, because it’s meant skipping heritage months on more than one occasion. Sometimes I have evaluated the materials I had available for a potential heritage display and found that our collection was too small, too outdated, too narrow in focus, in too poor condition, or otherwise not in good enough shape to be the core of a heritage display that was respectful and showed that the library valued the community whose heritage it was supposed to be representing. In those cases, putting together a display with those materials would be worse than having nothing, but having nothing isn’t great. People tend to be pretty aware of the major annual heritage celebrations (Black History Month in February, Women’s History month in March) and will definitely notice if you don’t do anything.

I think the best way to mitigate that is to make sure that you’re showcasing diverse books year-round, in context other than heritage displays. If your new books section and your other displays include relevant, appealing books by non-white, non-straight, non-whatever authors, about characters that the people in your community will identify with, people won’t be too concerned if you skip a heritage month. Also, have a good and honest response prepared if someone wants to know why you’re not doing something for a particular month—once or twice I’ve had to say to people “I went to put together a display on X and realized that we really needed to work on our collection of materials about that. We have ordered a lot of new stuff, but it won’t come in in time to be used in the display. If you want, let’s see if we can figure out a few you might be interested in, and we can place requests to have them saved for you once they come in.”

Of course, in a perfect world, you wouldn’t wait until the heritage month was looming to check on how your collection was doing in that area, but instead catch problems early and update whatever you need to update. I am working on getting better at this, but my reality has often been that I just don’t get to it as early as I should. Writing this post has made me realize that we have a bit of money from the sale of donated books right now, so this would be a great time for me to check on titles that we might want to use for Asian Pacific Heritage Month (May) and Hispanic Heritage Month (Sept 15-Oct 15) and order to fill any gaps.

I also think it’s important that the props and visual scheme you use shouldn’t reinforce stereotypes—as a general rule, I avoid any symbols that would come up on the first page of Google search results, and try to use colors that aren’t traditionally associated with the culture in question. I was actually pretty nervous about this aspect the first time I tried it. I did a Hispanic Heritage Month display for the Downtown Lansing library in the CADL system that was going up in the window where passerby would see it. I knew enough to have confidence in my book and DVD selections, but I was pretty sure I had literally never seen a display about Latin American culture and history that didn’t use an orange/red/yellow color scheme, and I was worried that the blue and black colors I chose would stick out like a sore thumb. Not a single person commented (positively or negatively) on the colors, but I got a lot of nice comments on the materials I selected and on a little primer I included on the difference between the terms ‘Hispanic’ and ‘Latino.’

#12: Let people bring their belongings →

From Emma:

I freely admit that this one is tough. Now that I’m a branch manager, I spend a lot of time deciding how to interpret library system policies in my branch and talking to patrons who are frustrated by those interpretations. Of all the rules I’ve tried to temper with leniency to keep the library usable, letting people have a lot of stuff with them is the one that seems to bother other library users the most. We have a fairly significant number of people who bring in quite a bit of stuff because they are either sleeping in shelters or outside at night so they don’t have anywhere to leave their things, and complaints about them ‘camping out’ in our library are pretty common.

The written policy in my library system is that patrons can bring in no more than 3 large bags and that everyone needs to stay with their belongings. In my library we encourage people to stay with their things and make it clear that we can’t take responsibility for watching them, but if someone steps away to use the bathroom or say hello to a friend on the other side of the library, we don’t make a fuss about it. It’s also common for people to unpack their 3 large bags into smaller containers once they come in, and people do sometimes fill up a table around them with possessions.

Fortunately, our library is not so crowded that this becomes a problem very often, and the way our code of conduct is written works in our favor to allow us to be flexible. If someone complains about someone else’s stuff being spread everywhere, I can usually find the complainer an empty table to sit elsewhere. Also, our code of conduct is a long, dense document composed of local, state, and federal ordinances and laws, so it’s basically unreadable to patrons. We don’t have it posted in the library, but we’ve extracted the line about 3 bags and put up an 8.5x11 sheet with that rule on it, along with a single sheet of guiding principles for using the library that is provided to all the branches. I believe it says something like:

Guidelines for using the library:

• Use language that doesn’t offend

• Respect the space and each other

• Be kind

I don’t know who designed this sign, but I should find out and thank them. If a patron asks, “Is it really allowed for him to bring all this stuff in here!?” I usually start by seeing if there is a specific concern I can resolve for the patron another way, like finding them somewhere else to sit, or reminding the person with lots of belongings to keep them out of areas where people are walking. That solves the problem about half the time. The other half of the time, it seems like the root of the complaint is really “Is it really allowed for homeless people to sit in here all day?” In those cases, I refer back to the library use guidelines and the three bags rule, if needed. Basically, as long as that person’s presence in the library isn’t interfering with other people’s use of the library, then yes, they are allowed to sit in the library all day. Some patrons seem not to like that the person does not seem to be actively using the library—they’ll say things like “but he isn’t reading anything!” In those cases, I try to remind the person with the concern that there are a lot of different ways to use the library—maybe the person in question is charging his phone, or meeting a friend, both of which are things that people who aren’t homeless also use the library to do. Occasionally patrons aren’t satisfied by that, but usually they are—when you really point out to people what a homeless person’s alternatives are (even if you have to do it in a non-confrontational, admittedly maybe passive-aggressive way), they feel enough empathy to drop it. The few patrons who don’t just have to accept that the library won’t be exactly the way they want it to be.

One final note: Even though most of this post has been about dealing with complaints, in my experience this is an accessibility policy that really pays you back in patron goodwill. Patrons who are homeless have their problems, but overall I’ve found them to be a loyal, appreciative, and helpful patron base. The value of libraries is so obvious to them that they usually really respect the staff, and because they spend so much time in the library, they have a good understanding of its rules and routines. No patron in my library goes out of their way to help me more than the gentlemen who are homeless. If they see someone struggling on a computer, they’ll stop by the desk and let staff know that the person might need help. If they see a kid wandering around alone, they will come and tell us. When we have a shift where all the staff are women and we have to check the bathrooms, they’ll offer to go in and check for us, or make sure the room is empty before we go in.

#11: Don't make you tell me again →

From Emma:

I haven’t had much of a chance to practice this tip of noting accomodations in patron records, so I thought I’d just share a couple of things from the Capital Area District Library system that gave me the idea for this tip. Something that CADL did well was make it very easy for someone who couldn’t manage their account on their own to have someone else handle things for them. The library card signup form they used had two interesting sections that I haven’t seen elsewhere: “Hold Release” and “Information Release.” In these sections, a patron could list the full names of anyone they liked who had permission to pick up their requests for them or access information about their account. The person named on their list would just show their ID and tell staff members whose account or materials they were there about. I know this might be hard to understand in the abstract, so here are a few examples of how I saw it used or how it could be used:

• An elderly gentleman who had trouble getting around in wintery weather had his daughter’s name listed on his hold release. She would come pick up his holds when the weather was bad using her ID, but he retained his library card so that he could come in and do things himself when the weather was better.

• There was a couple who had kids that they took care of together, but only the woman in the couple was the parent or legal guardian of the kids, so their dad couldn’t sign them up for cards. The mom came in one time to sign all the kids up for cards and put their dad on the information and hold release, and every time after that their dad brought them to the library.

Another related thing I saw at CADL was while I was substituting at one of the neighborhood branches. (The branch manager there and the branch manager at the central library were two of my earliest and best role models in library work—I should probably ask their permission to mention their names here so I can be more concise). That branch was next door to a place that was an adult daycare facility, so there were a lot of patrons there who needed a lot of help with using the library and with other everyday tasks. One of the regulars had a note on her account: “Phone number on account is for caregiver, [caregiver name].” It was very helpful as a new staff member to know that when I called about her account, I’d be taking to someone who wasn’t the patron but that that was okay. Normally I would have asked “Is Patron there?” and insisted on only talking to Patron about her account, which would have been in line with our privacy rules but not very helpful to the patron. It also gave a nice general heads up whenever you were helping Patron and pulled up her account that you should be prepared to give her a little more help than you would usually give an adult library user—it didn’t specifically say that, but knowing that the Patron had a professional caregiver was a good clue to what working with her might be like and helped you stay patient and understanding even if you were having a rough day at work.

In short, as long as a patron consents to having notes like this in their record, they can be a great tool for helping staff know how best to help the patron.

#10: Your ILS probably doesn't need to know everyone's gender identity →

From Emma:

This one has bothered me almost since I began working in a public-facing part of the library, and I am excited to finally work at a library system that doesn’t collect gender information. I think that’s a consequence of an unusual and gratifyingly modern approach to creating patron accounts in the first place.

The Dallas Public Library does not require patrons to fill out a paper form as a routine part of signing up for a library card. Instead, a staff member just talks to an interested patron and fills their answers right in to our ILS software. From a workflow perspective, this is extremely gratifying. No more chasing down a patron who has walked away from the desk after turning in an application with a key piece of information missing—the system won’t let you save the new account if certain fields are unfilled. No more hoarding piles of paper with signatures and other personal information that then have to be properly stored and eventually disposed of securely. No more throwing away reams of pre-printed forms when the application is updated.

I liked all of this as a staff member, but I recently became a branch manager and my new perspective has really increased my appreciation for this choice. Even more than the benefits to staff, though, I appreciate the benefits to patrons.

First, because the conversational exchange required to create a card is already pretty long, it seems to have really encouraged the library to streamline what information we collect. For pretty much every piece of information we ask for, I can explain the reason why we ask for it to a patron without embarrassment. Gender is one of the many things that are regularly required on paper applications that we don’t ask for, which I hope is a nice change for trans patrons, genderfluid patrons, and anyone else who has a more complicated answer than the “male or female” that most of us are used to.

The verbal account creation process is also pretty excellent for patrons who can’t read, or who aren’t fluent readers. Every DPL patron starts out with a verbal explanation of library policies and verbal instructions on how their card works. Contrary to what many people expect, people with limited literacy absolutely use the library, and I am excited that they don’t have to ‘out’ themselves or sign a piece of paper they can’t understand in order to do so. It’s also helpful for people with physical impairments for whom filling out a long form might be anything from a hassle or impossible without help.

Lastly, the Dallas Public process allows us to get away from the language of “applications.” If you work in a library, you may not have thought about this before, but applications are normally things that can either be accepted or rejected, based on things outside of your control. However, someone who isn’t familiar with libraries is much more likely to think of a “library card application” in this context. “Come talk to someone at the library and we will sign you up for a card” is much more encouraging than “Come to the library to fill out an application for a library card.”

There are probably even more good features of this system, but this is all I can think of for now.

#9: Kids like to see themselves →

From Emma:

I am probably a bit over-preoccupied with filling displays anyway, so I regularly check our new picture book area and refill the empty book stands. Although I suspect it’s much better than it was even 5 or 10 years ago, it can be hard to find items in the collection that reflect the diversity of the community. I find that I don’t have much trouble finding books featuring black characters, but I often struggle to find enough titles with Hispanic characters on the covers. The neighborhood where my library is located is about 75% Hispanic, but our picture book display is usually about 25% Hispanic. Practicing this tip is a good reminder to check on how the collection overall is doing, and to make notes of any gaps to fill later by ordering new materials.

When the pickings are slim, sometimes what I do is just take off some of the books with white kids on the covers and replace them with books with animals on the covers, since at least then kids aren’t seeing a bunch of images of people who don’t look like them. Plus, animals are cool.