#14: Get a readable keyboard — Library Accessibility

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.