New patrons: new challenges

The information age has brought libraries an entire new group of potential patrons, the so‐called “print disabled”. For many librarians, retooling to keep up with the invasion of digitized information seems frightening and overwhelming. The thought of having to take that a further step and become familiar with the specialized hardware and software that people with disabilities use to adapt the computer seems like asking too much. The goal of this column is to persuade librarians that taking on this new task will be a challenge and opportunity rather than another burden. A number of tools and products are discussed. This time the focus is on IBM’s Home Page Reader.