Disability Access for Libraries

From 2021 to 2025, I held the position of the UK Government's Disability and Access Ambassador for Arts and Culture. During this time, I investigated ways to enhance accessibility for individuals with disabilities. I compiled my insights into the following six recommendations to make arts and culture more accessible:

1.     Opportunities for Creative Artists with Disabilities and Disabled Consumers

2.     Pathways for Disability Employment and Volunteering

3.     Customized Online and Onsite Human Communication

4.     Engagement with the Local Disabled Community (children and adults)

5.     Disabled Role Models for Future Generations

6.     Regular Promotion of Disability Arts and Culture

Access and inclusion for libraries means a) physical access to buildings, b) appropriate toileting and changing facilities, c) access to books and resources, d) opportunities for employment and volunteering and e) community engagement and communication.

Physical Access

New-build libraries should include fully inclusive access in their design, with wide aisles, flat pathways, lower counters, disabled toilets and changing facilities. This will make disabled people feel welcome and valued, particularly those with complex physical and learning needs. If this is not possible with older buildings, then authorities should signpost their fully accessible libraries in the local area (which should eventually make up the majority) so people can plan their visit to the alternative, more accessible libraries.

When considering existing access to public service buildings, a common theme from stakeholders was knowing what to expect in advance. Parents and carers are used to planning carefully for visits. They need to plan for toileting and changing, transport, parking and access. They need this information so that last minute surprises are kept to a minimum. Sudden and unexpected disruption to routines and schedules can cause anxiety and behavioural problems leading to the termination of a library visit before it has even started.

Transport and Parking

Transport is vital for access to public buildings. Advance notice about lifts being broken, particularly on the underground, would really help. Transport updates which specifically affect disabled people should be alerted to parents and carers so they can plan their visit in advance.

Parking is also an issue for visitors to libraries. Parents and carers want to know where they can park and how they can park. Blue badges can often be dependent on certain days, zones and other restrictions. Parking should be signposted so parents and carers can plan their visit in advance.

Toileting and Changing

Changing facilities remains the biggest issues across all public buildings in arts and culture, including libraries. These should not be shared with baby changing areas but must be exclusively for people with disabilities. Appropriate changing places should be signposted so parents and carers can plan their visit in advance.

Library Resources

Physical DVD and CD rentals remain popular among the learning-disabled community. Some struggle to access digital alternatives and cannot afford the equipment required to play them. Many people with learning disabilities will listen or watch the same content over and over again and they enjoy their library visit to collect a new item. This is particularly important for blind or partially sighted people or those who cannot read. Libraries must provide proper access to braille and large font content, audio books and hearing loops.

Libraries should include sections about disabled people, be that their historic struggle and discrimination or the disabled and non-disabled reformers who drove equality and opportunity that shape attitudes today. Equally, disabled people need to access books about and by disabled role-models who look and sound like them. They must be celebrated within the ‘mainstream’ and in their own unique space in the library – perhaps as featured sections on rotation with other important subjects, such as Black History.

Libraries can play a major role in disabled community engagement, whether through school library services targeted at Special Schools/children with SEND in the mainstream, hosting events with a disability focus or simply through signposting services, activities and support available from local disabled charities such as like Mencap. The excellent work undertaken by libraries to reach out to their community during the pandemic is a platform to build on. Libraries still have the potential to reach the most vulnerable in society, many of whom feel totally isolated every day, regardless of any national health emergency.

Libraries could also benefit from sessions in which visitors are not expected to be quiet in them, since not all learning-disabled people find this easy to achieve. Such sessions would include additional signage to make directions clear.

Volunteering and Employment

Many individuals with learning disabilities would be well-suited to volunteering or employment in a library setting. Opportunities should be explored which can provide pathways to volunteering and employment through collaborations with local schools and colleges, disability charities and social care providers. This would support a key Government aim of attracting more disabled people into work. It would also provide vital health and well being benefits for the people themselves over and above any financial income, such as reducing loneliness and isolation, life-long learning, basic skills for work and reducing their increased risk of mental health problems, dementia and becoming victims of Hate Crime.

Community Engagement and Communication

The most convenient way to signpost transport routes and disruption, parking, changing facilities, library resources and access to volunteering and employment could be via an app, website or social media support. A ‘Library Access Plan’ would help people with disabilities scope out their visit, thereby reducing stress and significantly enhancing their enjoyment of the library. The best venues also offer designated and trained members of staff or volunteers to assist families and carers. This vital point of contact can provide up-to-date information on parking, transport, changing facilities, accessible exhibits and digital alternatives for each specific library. This will encourage more users with disabilities and more return visits. At a local level, this information could be signposted in schools, online community groups and by disability charities and organisations.

Guidance

Libraries should be supported in their journey towards expected standards of access and inclusion. Guidance for libraries could take the form of ‘Disability Access Good Practice’. Specifically relating to the aspects covered in this summary, the guidance would support library policy, training, monitoring and reporting, strategic planning and accreditation. Libraires that cannot make progress themselves in this specific area of public service should be directed to available support from a number of sources, ranging from other local libraires in their region to advice from the Disability and Access Ambassador for Arts and Culture at a national level.

David Stanley BEM 04/01/2022