Guest post: Law library

This month’s post is an interview with a reference librarian at a private university’s law school. I am always looking for more perspectives and would love to interview you if you are interested. Please get in touch via https://www.libraryaccessibility.net/submit. 

Q: Could you tell me a little bit about your library? Who it serves, the role it plays in the school, and so forth?

A: I work at the law library of a private university. Our primary patrons are students and faculty. We also serve the local bar (attorneys), and are open to the public, though we don’t welcome them. Our library provides a place for students to study, together in study rooms or alone at their study carrels. We have a reasonably sized collection. We get one textbook for each class, or two copies for the largest classes. 

Q: What are the biggest accessibility challenges you think your library has?

A: Some members of the public who find their way into the library appear to be mentally ill or intoxicated, and we have had no training on how to deal with them. 

The library’s aisles between shelves aren’t wide enough for a wheelchair. We haven’t had a patron in a wheelchair trying to use the shelves. If it comes up, we can pull books, but we can’t offer the patron shelf-browsing.

We’ve had a couple of public patrons bring untrained dogs in and claim they were “service” dogs. As you know, we can only ask what the dog is trained to do. Fortunately the ADA guidelines allow us to tell owners to take their dogs out if the dog is disruptive, and both of these dogs were (one barked repeatedly, the other jumped on people). 

Also, the photocopiers/scanners would be very hard for someone in a wheelchair to operate. If the issue arose, we’d have to scan or copy the materials for the patron.

Q: As a public librarian, I definitely see lots of patrons who are mentally ill and/or intoxicated. Training would certainly help, but in my experience what helps a lot more is having clear policies in place about what behaviors are and are not acceptable in the library. To some extent, you can learn how to communicate effectively with people who are mentally ill, but if you don’t know WHAT to communicate to them, it doesn’t do you all that much good. Do you think the staff at your library is on the same page about what to expect of these patrons and where to draw the line on how much help to give them, when you need to ask them to leave, etc.?

A: Our staff is down to four people, one of whom avoids interacting with the public as much as possible. She fears conflict and would not be capable of asking someone to leave. Also, I think two of us would give a non-student, non-lawyer patron more help than the library director would. So no, we’re not on the same page.

Q: Ugh, that sounds like a problem for many reasons. You also mentioned the aisles not being wheelchair-accessible. I’ve looked this up before and been told that a staff member pulling requested items is considered a reasonable substitute for physical access to the stacks under the Americans with Disabilities Act. This is a good example of the fact that you can’t just rely on being ADA-compliant when you are evaluating your physical space for accessibility. The standards aren’t as high as we often imagine them to be. Do you know if your library has considered moving the shelving to make the aisles wider?

A: No, there has been no discussion of this except for my bringing it up at a staff meeting once.

Q: Ah, yes. This is a favorite way of ‘addressing’ problems at multiple libraries where I’ve worked. On a more positive note, what are some strategies you use to make your library more accessible/what are some things you think your library does well in terms of accessibility?

A: Fortunately, students with disabilities get help from the university, so we get very few requests for accessibility accommodations. We do let students with physical disabilities exit from the back door, which is closer to the parking set aside for them. 

Q: How do you determine who that is as far as who uses the back exit? Do students need to be on some kind of list, or do you just make it known that if you need to go straight to the parking area because you have a disability, this is where you go?

A: This accommodation has been on an ad hoc basis. In some cases, the students have requested it; in others, we have offered it to students with mobility problems.

Something [else] we do well is hire good, friendly students to work the circulation desk, and one of my coworkers trains them to greet people as they enter the library. They help students figure out how to scan and copy items. 

Q: As a public librarian, I sometimes feel envious of academic and K-12 librarians, because in theory you all have more access to information about your patrons that could help with accessibility issues and, theoretically, allies within your institution. For example, K-12 students with disabilities have Individual Education Plans, and most universities have some kind of Office of Disability. In practice, does your library have any kind of relationship with the parts of the school that have that information and expertise? Is it actually shared?

A: Our students get help directly from the disability office, but the Family Educational Rights and Privacy Act (FERPA) restricts what information can be shared about students, and like most schools, our administration is probably over-cautious in sharing information. 

We had an unusual situation last fall where the school admitted a student who appeared to have learning and memory problems. Almost everyone who worked at the library ended up helping the student repeatedly in the computer labs. The student had a lot of trouble remembering various passwords to our computer network, various databases, and our online classroom platforms. I advocated for us to set aside a computer in the lab that would be usable only by this student, so that we could save all the passwords. I think this would have helped the student (and us) a lot. But the disability office said the request for the accommodation had to come from the student (and the form for the request was online). Since we weren’t allowed to know that the student had a disability, we weren’t allowed to suggest that accommodation. The student ended up withdrawing from the school (which would have happened with or without accommodations, but we ended up spending a lot of time in the lab, away from the service desks, before it happened).

Q: I'm really sorry to hear that! What a frustrating situation, and a frankly depressing response from the people who were supposed to help that student! Do you know if it would have been possible for the library to go ahead and set aside that computer without involving the disability office, or would that have violated some kind of policy?

A: I talked to someone in the IT department about just doing it, but he said he wouldn’t do it unless the disability office signed off on it.

Q: Sigh….Well, moving on. Something we often forget about disability/ability is that those are porous categories that people move between over time, and in particular that many people spend the first, say, ¾ of their lives as abled, and then become disabled in some way as they get older. Those people don’t necessarily have the same coping and self-advocacy skills that someone who grows up with a disability often learns, and might not have much self-awareness about their disability, either. I know you work with a lot of faculty members who are older and who might be experiencing that sort of thing. Do you have any advice about working with those patrons?

A: We work with a lot of elderly professors, and some older attorneys who come in. It takes a lot of patience. Law professors have very high self-esteem and feel uncomfortable when they don’t know how to do something. Their self-advocacy skills are just fine, thank you very much, but they have persistent problems with technology.

My advice is: a.) tell them the system or database is confusing and that everyone has problems with it; b.) refer to the challenge in question as “techie stuff” or “hoops to jump through” and c.) try to get systems set up so that they don’t have to do very much. I also like to get my hands on their computer rather than try to tell them what to do with it. As for giving support by phone, it’s nearly impossible. I will go to their offices even if they resist and want their problem fixed over the phone. 

I had a retired professor ask for help with a database password. He had forgotten it, so I was walking him through changing it using his security question. The question was “what town were you born in?” And he had entered that name incorrectly at some point, so even when I entered it correctly, it didn’t work. I learned that this particular vendor couldn’t see the answer -- I called and tried to get them to see his attempt was “close enough” so he could get in. We couldn’t just set up a new account because the vendor permitted only one account for an email address. Eventually I talked the vendor into blowing away his old account and starting from scratch, but that was frustrating. While I was talking to the vendor, the professor kept talking to me about unrelated things. 

Q: This is helpful! It has some good examples of adjusting your level of service based on the patron’s needs. Contacting a vendor for a patron’s individual account sounds really time-consuming. However, I know that academic librarians often support faculty to an extent that is surprising to public librarians like me. I also thought you made a good point that dealing with someone who doesn’t understand their own limitations can be especially frustrating. “Be patient” and “have empathy” are of course good advice, but they are much easier to say than to do, especially with patrons who (it sounds like) don’t have much of an appreciation for or understanding of what you are doing to help them. Is there anything you have found that helps you stick with that advice even when you are frustrated?

A: In the midst of these frustrating interactions, I promise myself that I will vent my frustration to a coworker or friend. Sometimes I also see the funny or absurd side of it (for example, the professor who initially misspelled his security answer (thereby locking in a wrong answer), even though it was the name of the town where he was born). I think it’s also helpful to be older; I’ve learned to let little things go more easily than I used to.

Digital Translators - They may be imperfect, but sometimes imperfection is still useful

This post is by guest author Wendy H., MLS Librarian in North Central Texas.

The access issue I’d like to discuss is that of language. The opinions expressed within this article are entirely my own.

Years ago, when I worked in a public library setting, I would sometimes have Spanish-speaking patrons approach the reference desk, hesitate, and then go ahead and ask me a reference question in Spanish, hoping I would understand. I didn’t, usually. Even if I did, I rarely knew how to respond. I would typically look for someone around me who spoke Spanish, though they weren’t always easy to find. It depended on who was working that day, or their location in the library - on the floor or in the back working at a desk.  Under such circumstances, I was as helpful as I knew how to be, but not extremely helpful. It sometimes looked something like a game of Charades to get the questions asked, and answered. 

I knew about digital language translation apps. I wish it had occurred to me then not to only view them as a means of satisfying my own curiosity as to word meanings. I wish I had thought of them as vehicles for cross-lingual conversation. 

I can hear the groans now. I know, digital language translation apps are not consistently perfect translators.

Fast forward, and now I work as a  School Librarian in a district where the dominant languages are English, Spanish, and Vietnamese. I don’t encounter much Vietnamese language spoken in my particular school, but overwhelmingly Spanish and, of course, English. I have done my best to learn what Spanish I can, and that is an effort that continues. I am something of a linguaphile anyway, but I do it out of respect. I also do it, because it is a more efficient use of our mutual time to be able to ask students, who have limited  English, questions relevant to the library resources in a way they can understand - albeit imperfectly at times. It is definitely a work in progress on my part. 

I am also the webmaster for my school. At one time, we monolingual speakers of English enlisted help from our Spanish-speaking colleagues to translate our articles and posts so that there- on the website- we presented the information in English and Spanish. I assume the same was true for webmasters on campuses where Vietnamese was regularly spoken. However, in the interest of consistency, the district made the decision that a Google Translate drop-down menu would do that work for us. The pages would be written in English, and Google Translate would do the work of communicating the information provided in either Spanish or Vietnamese, depending upon the need (We use Google Classroom and its associated apps, district-wide),

The crowd of webmasters did not go wild with cheering when that was announced. Many educators are bilingual, and know that the translation rendered by digital language translators may not accurately and completely convey what was meant, especially when dealing with context or culture. Consider that even in English a word I may use, that is harmless in common use as an American, may have an entirely different connotation in another English-speaking country, and vice-versa. As an example, using a non-controversial word, a boot in American English is a type of shoe. In England, it is what they call the trunk of a car -boot, rather than trunk. Meanings sometimes have to be clarified, even within the same language.

So along with my sincere attempts to learn the Spanish language, among other languages, I rely heavily on Google Translate or other translation programs when the situation calls for it.

And I must say, for all the perceived imperfections, it has done what it needed to do. It has created an exchange of information where the question was asked, and answered.

This is one example of what such an exchange might look like in the library where I now work. A non-English speaking parent is in the library, assisting with crowd control for Book Fair. She is waiting for another volunteer to arrive, so they can take their lunch and return later. She asks me what time the other parent is expected. She may ask me in very limited English, and I understand enough to know what she is asking. She may ask me in Spanish, and I understand enough Spanish in the context of what is going on to know how to type the answer in Google Translate. She may type the question into Google Translate herself, and I read it, and type in the answer, and she reads it.

We manage. It is amazing how much sooner we get to the point where the essential information has been conveyed. However imperfectly, we achieve what we need to achieve. Question asked. Question answered. 

Reference, which is  responding to questions asked, and supplying information in response - is a big part of what Librarians do. We are information professionals. When the request is asked in another language, we have to use whatever resources are available to us to answer that question. We may not have a living, breathing human being in our midst who can intervene in the patron’s native language. 

My tip is this: Be patient with yourself if you are limited to English. Be willing to research translation programs, be willing to use them in order to get your meaning across. Even if imperfect, I can’t count how many times a parent or student has responded “Oh!” with relief when a digital translator is used as a middle-man to understanding. 

This goes both ways. When two people who do not fluently speak each other’s languages must ask and respond to each other, both must have patience. Both must recognize that learning a language, however motivated the individual is, takes time, while many information requests may have a date-stamp on them. There may be urgency involved. As information professionals, we try to answer the questions as efficiently as we can. This may not always be a seamless transaction, but the end goal is the exchange of information. If that goal is met, it is a success.