The ideal library would be universally accessible. Modern developments have made this ideal much more realizable. Mediaeval scholars trudged hundreds of miles on foot through trackless, banditti‐ridden wastes and then spent months learning a new language in order to read manuscript collections that are now probably available in facsimile and in translation to anyone with access to the internet anywhere in the world. Those of us who trained as gatekeepers to scarce resources are still having difficulty adapting ourselves to this post‐scarcity information world.
Aside from those of the earth's population who are so poor as to be unable to afford internet access, or who are not adequately literate in any of the major languages in which information is available, there are people who are deprived of access to information through disability. Although some new developments in information technology have greatly benefited the majority of us, the growth of multimedia “liberating” us from the constrictions of print has produced resources which cannot readily be utilised by either the blind or the deaf, for example. I was talking recently, with the examiners of an outstanding neuroscience PhD thesis, about the problems of depositing it in the library when there is no realistic way of expressing it in print. A blind person, even a colour‐blind person, even, to some extent, a deaf person, or someone who had difficulty in handling a mouse and keyboard simultaneously would not be able to make full use of it without far more special assistance than would be necessary with an ordinary piece of print.
Most research has inevitably focused on the physical needs of the disabled. There are so many basic problems to be overcome that intellectual needs tend to be forgotten. The biggest challenge the physically handicapped often face is that of simply reminding people that they have interests and abilities of their own. (The “Does he take sugar?” syndrome). Even the new five‐volume of Albrecht (2006) does not discuss libraries, though it does cover various educational needs and services. Having interests is not, of course, entirely a matter of serious educational needs. There is no intrinsic reason why a blind person should not be interested in pornography for example. I would like to draw attention to Hefner's remarkably gallant (gallant is, I think, the word in the circumstances) but short‐lived attempt to produce a Braille version of Playboy. (The whole issue of the sexuality of the disabled is remarkably fraught. In a recent scandal it was noticeable that a small number of people were surprised to find that a blind man had the ability to rise to become a cabinet minister, able to handle the extraordinary amount of recorded information needed to be a senior member of government, but a much larger proportion were disturbed to discover that he had a sex life as well.)
The problem the book under review faces is that there are so many different ways in which the disabled have problems in accessing information that it is hard to produce a short coherent study of the subject. The information needs of a blind minister of state who needs to keep up an overview of the entire judicial, prison and police service of a major industrial country are so different from the needs of, say, a crippled Bangladeshi child with no realistic career other than street begging open to him without major assistance. This book, in fact, consists of a rather random selection of chapters, mainly focused on technical solutions to the problems of people with visual impairment, hearing loss (less of a problem in a library context, but still needing consideration), etc., with only one chapter on the developing world – a study of access to university libraries in Nigeria.
One disabled group of particular interest to me is not mentioned at all – the mentally ill. In most developed countries, the lunatic asylums have been swept away and replaced by forms of “care in the community”. The old asylum libraries, at least in England, were extraordinary places. The asylums tended to be out in the countryside. They were enormous and had enormous amounts of space. Both staff and patients tended to spend years there, with very little connection with the outside world. Many of the libraries I visited 25 years ago were of the quality of a good public library, but geared up to the needs of their particular users. They were largely swept away, and public libraries were not given the resources needed to replace them. Most public libraries, in fact, responded by closing ranks against the mentally ill, withdrawing newspaper rooms that had formerly been the preserve of the disturbed and homeless, refusing to register people who were not on electoral rolls, etc. The McGrath Library at Broadmoor still manages to provide a magnificently “normal” public library service to some of the most severely dangerous and disturbed people in Britain, but on the whole the provision of access to information for the mentally ill has deteriorated in recent years.
The most useful chapter in this book is on “Low‐cost/no‐cost ways to improve . . . ” I still cringe at the memory of saying “Do you want a hand?” to a one‐armed psychiatrist struggling with a photocopier, only to receive the well‐practiced response “No thanks, I've still got one”. Putting a folding step‐ladder level with the copier so he could slide bound volumes onto it turned out to be the solution to his particular problem. Most of what is needed is a simple change of attitude among library staff – from providing a service, to considering the practical needs of their users.
This book is not coherent or comprehensive enough to act as a supplement to the Encyclopedia of Disability, or as a general introduction to the subject. Even the lengthy discussion of “Further Reading and Resources” is a bit of a bibliographic rag‐bag – it includes a paper on “Toward an Accessible Academic Library: using the IFLA Checklist” for example, but does not actually include the International Federation of Library Associations Checklist itself (Irvall and Nielsen, 2005). Surely a key document in this field! The book is worth looking into, particularly if your customers are interested in technological solutions to print‐using disabilities. I would not recommend it as a general introduction, but it helps raise questions that all librarians should consider.
