#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.