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Funding and governance of library and information services for visually impaired people: international case studies

Part2:Country studies

Australia

Library and user group data

Prevalence of visual and print impairment

According to the Australian Bureau of Statistics, around 292,700 Australians are blind or vision impaired (2004). The figure is set to increase to 421,600 by 2021 as ‘baby boomers’ reach retirement age.

There is general agreement about the visually impaired and print disabled population: Vision Australia estimates 300,000 visually impaired people and 1.4m print disabled people and the Round Table on Information Access for People with Print Disabilities estimated in 1995 that there were over 1 million Australians who have a print disability.

This figure may be increasing. According to a 2002 discussion paper on provision of materials in the tertiary education sector from the Australian Human Rights and Equal Opportunities Commission:

“While the definition of “print disability” is clear, there are few reliable statistics that can be used to make firm predictions about increasing numbers. This in itself indicates that there is scope for research. However, all the anecdotal and extrapolated evidence suggests that the number of people in the general population who have a print disability is increasing, and that the number of students with print disabilities who are enrolled at universities is also increasing.” [http://www.hreoc.gov.au/disability_rights/education/forumdp.html

There is also a survey on the incidence of disability among indigenous people, but this subsumes sight, hearing and speech disabilities in one category and a number of factors mean that it is not comparable with other surveys. A paper from the National Library of Australia on library services for disabled people in the aboriginal communities in 2002 [http://www.nla.gov.au/initiatives/meetings/disabilities/indigenous.html] stated:

“Given the difficulties associated with collecting basic data on the prevalence of disabilities within indigenous communities, it is not possible to clearly identify the needs of indigenous people with disabilities with respect to library and information services. However, it is known that indigenous communities suffer relatively high rates of certain medical conditions that can be expected to lead to varying degrees of disability, for example a higher incidence of glaucoma, ear infections and diabetes, leading to sight and hearing impairments. Together with low rates of English literacy, this translates to a major incidence of print and other disability in indigenous communities and is a serious barrier to library use.”

Public libraries

According to the Australia Bureau of Statistics Public Libraries survey 2003-4 [http://www.abs.gov.au/ausstats/abs@.nsf/Lookup/08CDEAE368A2A931CA256A780001D4DB], at the end of June 2004, there were 548 public library and archive organisations operating through 1,754 locations. The number of local government libraries rose from 505 in 1999/2000 to 532 in 2003-4, after a decline between 1996-7 and 1999-2000. The number of local government library locations was also up from 1,510 in 1999/2000 to 1,716 in 2003-4.

Visits rose from 93.3m to 99.6m to local government libraries. There were 105 million visits to local government, national and state libraries, representing an average of five visits per head of population.

Income rose from $478m in 1999/2000 to $545.2m in 2003-4 and the total number of employees went up slightly from 9,592 to 10,606.