Library Services for Patrons with Disabilities

Procedure No: 10.09
Effective Date: 3/25/1994
Revised Date: 01/06/2005

Purpose

To serve patrons with disabilities so they, too, can take advantage of all we have to offer. Degrees of disability vary from users in wheel chairs to the visually impaired with each requiring services unique to their needs.

Following are some general guidelines:

Access to Bibliographic Information

As it is necessary, staff will assist the patron according to his or her needs in using ALICE, CD-ROMs, indexes, etc. This might be as simple as directing the patron to specialized equipment or it might mean taking indexes to a table, books from the shelves, providing a printout or whatever else might be necessary to provide citations. Reference or other public service area staff may provide more specific assistance.

Access to the Collections

Within a given department or section, a staff member will gather materials for the user who might not be physically able to retrieve books, periodicals or other materials.

If the materials are located in the stacks, 6th and 7th floors, they can be requested from the Circulation Desk, or directly from full-time stack employees, and a student will be assigned to retrieve the material which can be picked up at the Circulation Desk

During evening and weekend hours when fewer staff are available, it may be necessary to request assistance from full-time or student staff members in other areas to assist in retrieving materials from several departments, etc. This is a cooperative enterprise. If staffing is particularly problematic, the request for materials may be left at the Reference Desk.

Reference Assistance

General reference assistance is available on the second floor at the Reference Desk. Specialized assistance is available at other public services desks, such as the Government Documents Department, Health Sciences Library, Current Periodicals, or the Fine Arts Library. For specialized and in-depth personal assistance, an appointment may be made with the appropriate Subject Bibliographer on the Libraries' staff.

Access to Copying

Should a handicapped patron be unable to operate a coin operated copier, he or she will have the copying done by Copy Service staff at the same price as he or she would pay if copying at a coin operated copier.

Access to Additional Information

A patron with a disability might have needs that require special attention or have needs that cannot be met by the staff or collections. When this occurs, the user will be referred to the Assistant Dean for Public Services or the Chair of the Libraries' ADA Advisory Group. The contact person for assistance outside the Library is the Director of Disability Services in the Office for Institutional Equity.