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FOR ONE LIBRARY SET ON MAKING EQUAL ACCESS A REALITY, LIMITED MEANS WAS NO BARRIER.
What does it mean for a library to be truly accessible? For the staff of the Montclair (NJ.) Public Library, it meant a lot more than being the only fully ADA-compliant public building in this urban/suburban community of 37,000 people. "What good is it for people to be able to get in the door if they can't use the resources we have here?" asks Adult Services Manager Mary Lou Cass. "If their level of vision prevents them from reading books or computer screens, those materials are not accessible. If people have limited hearing, how can they take advantage of library programming? If mobility impairment keeps them at home or prevents them from using a computer mouse, then providing physical access to the building really means very little."
Of course, achieving architectural compliance in an existing facility is a challenge in itself. After consulting with the local handicap-advisory committee and talking with architects, library officials oversaw the 199697 expansion and renovation of the main building, which included the installation of push-button entry doors, a super-sized elevator, wide doorways, a ramp on the two-level children's floor, and accessible rest rooms. But as far as the library staff was concerned, physical access was just the necessary first step.
Montclair Public Library had long offered TTY service for hearing-impaired users, and was also the first library to feature EIES (Electronic Information and Education Service) of New Jersey, a fully searchable, dialup TeleReader service providing full-text recordings by volunteers of articles from a selection of local and national newspapers and magazines. Additionally, the library owned a wheelchair and a single-user listening system. But that was only a beginning.
Realizing that open access to information is more than just throwing open the doors and saying, "Come and get it," library administrators, staff, and trustees identified the expansion of services to people with disabilities as a major institutional objective during a 1999 planning retreat. The second objective they targeted was similar: the enhancement of services to seniors, including those with age-related or other disabilities.
Our palpable need to address the challenges of serving people with disabilities was based on more than just a gut feeling or...