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

Part2:Country studies

Australia

Preferred situation

Respondents were asked to describe the ideal way is which library services would be organised, funded and delivered and how organisations would collaborate to do so. There was a lot of agreement in the tertiary sector about the ideal solutions. Schools placed emphasis on better trained staff. It was agreed that governments should provide some or all the funding, with some respondents believing that publishers should also contribute.

Schools

Governments would provide the funding, education departments would deliver the services. There would be greater inter library communication. Ideally, there would be qualified teacher librarians in all schools in Australia and qualified knowledgeable staff and adequate funding.

CAUL

One idea would be to establish a federally funded national agency which obtained texts and required readings for tertiary education providers on behalf of their enrolled students and staff. This agency would have access to a reliable and comprehensive database of materials in accessible formats and would have established relationships with publishers and be empowered to obtain material in electronic format promptly. The material would be delivered online to visually impaired people’s through the tertiary education provider’s online learning management systems.

Funding would come from the Department of Education, Science and Training to education providers, who would deliver the services.

The ideal level of service would be timely, accurate materials in preferred format, providing visually impaired people with all required reading prior to the commencement of the semester.

Visually impaired people should also be encouraged to develop the skills to undertake their own independent research which will prepare them for their future work.

Macquarie University

Ideally, a national central repository needs to be established which would allow for access to materials produced Australia-wide in accessible format to enable libraries and their users with vision disabilities to have more efficient access to costly materials.

All governments involved in establishment of the world education library of accessible study materials for people with print disabilities would contribute financially to this facility on a regular basis. Publishers of educational texts would also contribute funds to ensure technologies available to the library and its users remained current and accessible. Publishers would be required to contribute funds to facilitate Braille/large print production of their texts which would need to be published in compliance with the DAISY standard to ensure availability of an accessible common file format for use in producing material in required formats. The Australian government would also contribute funds to ensure ongoing work of the national education library in providing a high quality uniform service to Australian students with vision impairment ? regardless of where they live. All educational institutions would also be required to earmark a significant proportion of their library funds for use in enabling institutional libraries to perform their role in assisting students with vision disabilities at a local level as outlined previously.

Various libraries connected to the 3-tiered system described above would deliver the services. These libraries would share information about their collections and service delivery systems via a common database and participate in joint initiatives designed to improve the quality and range of services available to their clients. They would also ensure barriers to accessing materials in a time-efficient manner would not be created by non-compatible catalogue or interlibrary loan systems and processes.

This would be done using a combination of methods: online dispatch of material; delivery of books etc on CD if recorded in DAISY format; or in hard or soft copy Braille/large print. User preference would be a significant factor in shaping the service delivery mode/s to be used. If users did not have specific technology, e.g. DAISY players needed to access some material, the institutional library would need to source this from the national education library for their students. Some material, such as newspapers and certain periodicals, could be delivered to students via a digital broadband satellite wireless transmission system which would facilitate real time access to this material for playback on specially designed devices by the end user. This concept is now a reality and already being applied in South Australia via the “Books in the Sky” initiative (see above under special projects) allowing people with vision disabilities to read talking books and newspapers.

An ideal level of service would involve the provision of material in a user’s preferred format within 24 hours of a request being received by the education institution’s library.