#62: Check on how your software looks in other languages

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Test out how your self-check machine, computer management software, or other third-party technology operates in languages other than English. It’s common for text translations to be incomplete, or for confusing default text to be left behind if a library hasn’t customized an area. You may not have the language skills or the technology privileges to fix these oversights yourself, but at least they will be on your radar as a potential stumbling block for patrons, and you’ll be more ready to step in to clarify and help.

#61: Think about adults who need more help

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Most public libraries have, at most, two different kids of resident account types, one kind for adults and one kind for minors. The adult accounts and the privacy rules surrounding them are generally designed on the assumption that account holders are independent people able to understand and enter into contracts. However, there may be adults who want to spend time in the library who aren’t intellectually capable of understanding and agreeing to library borrowing policies or codes of conduct, or of managing their accounts on their own. Think about what you might be able to do to make it easier for patrons in that situation to use the library. For a patron with limited communication skills, can you add the name and contact information for a caregiver to a patron’s account, and a note that library staff are permitted to discuss the account with that person? For a patron who is just not going to be able to keep track of a library card, can you give that person a dummy barcode to satisfy your ILS and waive whatever penalties your library might impose for checking out with an ID instead?

#60: Try out the voice-based web

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Obviously, a sighted person’s experience with tools for people who are visually impaired is going to be different from those people’s own experiences with those tools, but as long as you remember that, it can still be enlightening to test those tools out. One of the challenges is that it’s a steep learning curve to do that if you’re sighted and don’t have the same background or incentives to absorb a new skill. I thought Chris Ashton’s write-up of using screen readers for a day was a very good start for an untrained sighted person, and I learned a lot.

#59: Copy your neighbor's good ideas

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Take a field trip to the nearest library, or a nearby one that resembles yours in some important way. Take notes about any cool accessible features they have so you can try something similar at home. Alternately, if the library you visit has a lot of barriers, take note of the ones you observe so you can check and make sure your own library doesn’t have the same problems.

#58: Name your English classes well

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If your library offers any kind of English learning program, consider branding it as “English classes,” “English Language Learning (ELL),” or something similar. Try to avoid English as a Second Language (ESL), since it’s often a misnomer. Especially if the primary immigrants your library serves are from Central America, South America, India, or Africa, there’s a good chance English is their third language at the very least—many people who immigrate to the U.S. from those areas spoke an indigenous language at home growing up, and the Spanish, French, Hindi, etc. that American institutions are communicating with them in is already a second language.

#55: Learn to say "hello," "welcome," or "sorry"

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If people who use a language you don’t know come into your library, see if you can learn just a handful of words or phrases in that language. Even if all you can say is “Bienvenido [welcome], welcome to the library. How can I help you?” or “Bonjour [hello]! Sorry, I don’t speak French,” greeting someone in their own first language, even if your accent is terrible, is a way to say “Your presence in the library is normal and expected. You are one of the people this library is for and I want to help you, even if the language barrier is going to be a challenge.”

#52: Get some training, do some reading

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There are surely accessibility considerations that are relevant to your work and your library that it would be hard to touch on with generic accessibility ideas and suggestions like the ones on this site. Take some training or read some articles on Syracuse University’s Project ENABLE platform to pick up some tools and perspectives that will help you spot some possible accessibility improvements that are unique to your library.

#51: Find a way that everyone can help

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You may have prospective volunteers who aren’t suited for traditional volunteer tasks like reshelving materials and doing physical processing of new books. Spend ten or fifteen minutes making a list of things that people with limited English literacy, limited dexterity, or other potential issues could do to help your library.

#50: Consider allowing naps

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If your library has a ‘no sleeping’ provision in your code of conduct, consider softening it or at least talking with your colleagues about when you will and won’t enforce it. There are legitimate reasons for these rules, like allowing/encouraging staff to attempt to rouse people who may need medical attention and discouraging people from bringing in a lot of stuff and treating the space like a hotel room. However, sometimes sleeping prohibitions are just there to make people who are homeless feel unwelcome in the library and discourage them from spending time there. See if you can find a way to allow an elderly homeless gentleman reading the library’s copy of the newspaper to doze off in a comfortable chair for 15 minutes, or for a sleep-deprived teen to quietly rest his head on a table and nap until his ride arrives.

#48: Make good use of specialized review sources

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In particular, check out these resources on books featuring Native American and First Nations characters: https://firstnations.org/books and https://americanindiansinchildrensliterature.blogspot.com/. Not only are there good purchase ideas for expanding your collection or putting together a display, there are also reviews of problematic titles that you might want to consider weeding. If you want a refresher or primer for yourself, I liked Everything You Wanted to Know about Indians but were Afraid to Ask by Anton Treuer.

#45: Start with the absolute basics

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People are not born knowing that in the United States, public library memberships are generally free and there is no rental cost to borrow materials. You will encounter adults who are learning this for the first time, especially in communities where there are lots of people whose parents weren’t library users, and/or lots of people who grew up in countries where free public library memberships are not the norm. Make sure that your marketing materials explain the absolute basics of how the library works—don’t assume people will come in already having that knowledge.

#41: Accessibility is for staff, too

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Your colleagues deserve to be treated well in the library just as much as your patrons do. To make yourself aware of some ways in which that might not be happening, check out the LIS Microaggressions Tumblr blog about what it can be like as a library staff member who doesn’t match the demographics of a typical library worker. Even if you’d never say any of the things people report there, it’s good to be aware that they are being said, so that you can be listening and ready to intervene if you hear them from someone else.

#37: Use respectful terminiology

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Check your posted signs, documents, and website language for mentions of people with disabilities. Re-word any references that use outmoded or offensive language. Figuring out the best terminology can be a challenge, but getting rid of the worst terminology should be easy. While there there is not a clear consensus on preferred language (unsurprising since the number of people with disabilities is so large), there is consensus about a large number of terms that should not be used.