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

Part2:Country studies

UK

Rights and attitudes

There is a general right of equal access to buildings, products and services for disabled people via the Disability Discrimination Acts 1995 and 2005. The right of disabled people to take part in cultural life is recognized by policymakers.

Rights to education are covered by the Special Educational Needs and Disability Act (SENDA) 2001.

There are no specific rights to library services and reading materials for visually impaired people, but they are covered by the Public Libraries and Museums Act, 1964, which makes it a statutory duty of a public library authority to provide “a comprehensive and efficient library service for all persons desiring to make use thereof”. This has generally been understood to include disabled people and was reinforced by the DDA 1995.

Public Library Standards were published in 2001 by the Department of Culture, Media and Sport. In October 2004 the Standards were streamlined to reflect the need not to impose unreasonable administrative burdens on local authorities to deliver quality services to meet local needs. The streamlined 10 Standards, feed in to the Culture Block of the Comprehensive Performance Assessment. The Standards are currently under further review by the Museums, Libraries and Archives Council to reflect developing needs. Any outcomes from this review will take account of the recent Local Government White Paper (October 2006) “Strong and Prosperous Communities”, in which it is proposed to remove existing service focused performance assessments in favour of a single set of national outcomes for pan local government assessment.

Three of the original standards related to services for visually impaired people. PLS 9, concerning requests, stated: ‘In addition, in order to meet the requirements of the Disability Discrimination Act 1995 an authority should allow requests for items in alternative formats which meet the needs of people with disabilities'. PLS 16 and 17 required the provision of ‘large print books and books on tape'.

The Framework for the Future issued by DCMS in 2003 also emphasises the role that public libraries should play in ensuring everyone's physical and intellectual access to the public library service as part of the latter's contribution to social inclusion. This was followed up by an Action Plan which was published by the Museums, Libraries and Archives Council.

Expectations

Respondents agreed that it is difficult to generalize about the expectations of visually impaired people in relation to library services:

“Expectations vary according to individual characteristics and how sight loss occurred. To generalise, my impression is that people who are born blind are realistic in not expecting to receive the same level of access to content but they quite rightly demand it as a basic human right. The opportunities for access to much more content via digital technologies are generally well appreciated but, of course, Technical Protection Measures do not make this as easy as it should be so we have to carry on lobbying and campaigning.”

“People who lose sight later in life tend to be reliant on large print and audio and as they become older are less likely to visit their local library for transport reasons. As they become more dependent on others their expectations are modified by a natural gratitude for what they are provided with. This reinforces the role of charity rather than basic human rights in this field.”

“I think they expect to find that it's not possible to carry on with their reading and learning as before. And, in truth, this can be the case given the low proportion of materials available in alternative formats, most especially in educational fields. I think younger people tend to expect more because they are more ICT aware and mobile. Older people tend to be less mobile, more reliant on family and friends and therefore more grateful. This tends to reinforce the view that his is a charitable work.”

For the tertiary education sector, SCONUL had the opinion that most visually impaired students did expect equality of provision.

The government response was that there were comparatively few complaints received about access to reading matter and library services, though “For example correspondence received by DCMS has sometimes given the impression that some parents expect that their individual local authority should have the responsibility to provide a comprehensive collection e.g. of Braille children's books. The availability of material in alternative format is also a legitimate concern, but this issue is not within the gift of public libraries to resolve. The Department of Trade and Industry are working with publishers and charitable organisations to find a remedy to the lack of alternative format content.”

The public library respondent felt, based on 25 years in the service, that many visually impaired people relied on informal assistance:

“Families and friends can be the key to keeping people reading and often visit the library to pick up materials on their behalf.”

Findings from Vision2020 UK's Network 1000 research project show what formats people prefer to read and whether they have assistance from family and friends.

Source: Vision2020, Network 1000, Survey of opinions and circumstances of 1000 visually impaired people in Great Britain [http://www.vision2020uk.org.uk/library.asp?libraryID=686&section=000100050005