#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.

#44: Make your language skills clear

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If you speak a language other than the dominant one in your area, that’s excellent. However, if you don’t ‘look’ like it, patrons may not be able to benefit from your skills. While some people will approach the desk and ask if anyone speaks their language, other patrons will see that no one behind it appears to come from their same ethnic/linguistic/cultural group, and assume that they are out of luck. Consider adding something to your badge or work outfit indicating your talents, and try greeting hesitating patrons not only in the dominant language of the area, but also in whatever other languages you know.

#43: Get comfortable chairs

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Is your library ordering new furniture? Congratulations! When you’re choosing what to order, be conscious of the importance of choosing things that will work for all patrons who might come in. Advocate for at least some of them to be wide enough for people who are obese. A single style of small chairs with slim profiles may look more visually appealing on the mock-ups, but not all of your patrons are going to be able to use them, especially if they have arms that people will have to navigate.

#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.

#40: Communicate with images

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Consider whether you can add pictograms to any of your large directional signs. A pictogram is an image or symbol indicating the same thing that the text of a sign would indicate—think the box with up and down arrows for ‘elevator.’ Pictograms help all sorts of people navigate the library: young children, people who don’t come from the dominant language group, people whose vision isn’t good enough for smaller-print signs, and adults who are illiterate or semi-literate.

#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.

#32: Reach out

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Do a Google Maps search, or consult your colleagues, to find an organization in your neighborhood that supports a group of people who you think your library could serve better, whether that’s kids with learning disabilities, recent immigrants, or adults with limited or no literacy. Call or email that organization and ask them for suggestions about how the library could make itself more welcoming to their clients, and/or invite them for a personalized tour of the library building.

#31: Use stickers responsibly

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Many American libraries in areas with large black populations shelve ‘African-American’ titles in their own section, or add some kind of sticker to certain books to make them easier for black patrons to find. If you do this, make sure you’re doing it in a thoughtful way that actually fills a patron need. Books by white authors about black characters are probably not a great choice. Neither is only stickering historical fiction or ‘issue’ books (usually things about slavery/the civil rights movement) and ignoring contemporary black fiction.

#30: Ensure people's seats fit at the table

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Modern electric wheelchairs often require higher clearance than hand-powered chairs or regular office chairs. Make sure you have at least one computer station and one table that someone in an electric wheelchair can pull into. If you don’t have a good way to test this, you might want to use these ADA guidelines as a starting point for minimum heights: https://www.ada.gov/reachingout/servingcustomers.html

#28: Some information is better than none

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If you can’t afford a professional translation service, go online to a crowdsourcing site like reddit or metafilter and get a single paragraph of important information about your library translated into a language other than English. Libraries can sometimes be hesitant to put out materials that don’t meet a certain professional standard—worrying that it won’t follow the style guide, will have errors, or won’t be as complete as the English version. However, if the realistic alternative to incomplete information or information with minor grammatical errors is no information at all, do your non-English-speaking patrons the service of giving them the former.

#26: Advertise services for blind readers

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Consider becoming a demo site for your state, province, or national government’s library for the blind. You may not be in a position to buy and circulate Braille materials, an extensive audio collection, etc., but you are almost certainly in the position to point patrons to the people who can. U.S. library workers can start at: https://www.loc.gov/nls/

#25: Some holidays move

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If your children’s section has a separate collection of books about holidays, take a look at how that collection is organized. Many libraries organize that section around the Gregorian calendar year, which is a problem for holidays like Ramadan which move throughout that year because they are based on a lunar or lunisolar calendar. Consider changing the way that you organize holiday books so that non-Christian holidays have a sensible place and are easier to find.