With July being Disability Pride Month, Gleeson Library remains dedicated to pursuing our goal of making our electronic resources and website equally available to all users. We also highlight databases for learning more about the Disability Pride Movement.
Learning From Our Users
Presenting a clearly organized entry point to the wealth of resources we offer, Gleeson’s homepage is richly informative, with drop-down menus and several sets of links. Navigating such a webpage, however, can present heady challenges for blind and visually impaired users.
A computer with a refreshable braille display. Photo by Elizabeth Woolner on Unsplash
We have benefited from inviting visually impaired students to speak directly to library staff. These students demonstrated the screen readers they use, impressing us with their ability to quickly navigate through the vocalized descriptions of our site’s pages and databases. Hearing from these users helped us to further understand the challenges they face.
After these presentations, we gained a greater appreciation and understanding of how we might improve access. We also were able to implement some fixes right away, further aligning the library website with Web Content Accessibility Guidelines (WCAG):
- Improved the content structure (landmarks, headings, tables, etc.) of our homepage, making it easier to navigate for those using assistive technologies.
- Improved the semantic HTML (roles, buttons, labels, forms) used on our homepage, providing clearer context to the various functions of the website.
- Enhanced the keyboard focus performance of the website by establishing a universal style for the visible focus indicator.
Yet, frustratingly, we face limits when it comes to providing unilateral equal access. A chief example is the range of accessibility we see in PDFs from the library’s electronic content providers. Some PDFs are not readable by a screen reader at all; others are readable but lack structural tagging like headings, sections, and lists; and some meet all the requirements of a truly screen readable document.
Increasing awareness of such difficulties to realize real change is central to the Disability Rights Movement.
For 2024-25, Sherise Kimura, Head of the Electronic Resources & Systems Department, applied for and received a Jesuit Foundation grant to fund user-based research focusing on identifying remaining blocked points of access and taking steps towards achieving true unilateral equal access.
Disability in the Modern World: History of a Social Movement
We proudly offer this database as a resource, which provides firsthand accounts from various sources and perspectives.
“Breaking barriers with ICT: Charta 77 guides Czech paraplegics back to work” by jzo is licensed under CC BY-SA 2.0
Here’s a brief glimpse at several items that may be found inside:
- The film Zoom In gives a glimpse into the lives of five disabled people, delving into micro-aggressions and biases they face daily, offering viewers suggestions for how to be better allies and supporters.
- The book The Disability Rights Movement: From Charity to Confrontation chronicles the movement’s history and development, stressing the wide range of disabilities affecting individuals and mapping out the policy-changing activism across decades.
- Harilyn Rousso’s feisty memoir Don’t Call Me Inspirational: A Disabled Feminist Talks Back reflects on her cerebral palsy and how it impacts her relations with others as well as her own self-acceptance.
- The chapter “Deaf and Hearing Adults’ Attitudes Toward Genetic Testing for Deafness” by Anna Middleton found in Genetics, Disability, and Deafness explores controversial sides of the issue with clarity and understanding: “Some Deaf parents prefer to have deaf children and do not want the numbers of deaf children born to be reduced, threatening the future of their culture (Middleton et al. 1998). Hearing people with no knowledge of Deaf culture may find this perspective difficult to understand.”
- One of the real treasures to be discovered is The Disability Rag/The Ragged Edge Periodical Archives. This is a complete run of the revolutionary publication that started in 1980 and was a galvanizing force in the Disability Pride Movement.
Additional Resources
“Disability Pride Month 2023” by nyctaxilimo is marked with Public Domain Mark 1.0.
The library database Opposing Viewpoints presents “pro” and “con” arguments on a variety of wide-ranging issues. Its overview page on Disability Rights breaks down relevant results by document type, such as Featured Viewpoints (10), Primary Sources (8), Images (35), Academic Journals (973), Audio (116), and more.
Also, try searching “Disability Rights Movement” and/or “Disability Pride” in the following additional databases:
Featured image: “Americans With Disabilities Act Annual Celebration” by MDGovpics is licensed under CC BY 2.0.