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

Part I: Summary Report

A note on terminology

There is an extremely useful glossary on the European Accessible Information Network (EUAIN) project's wiki, see http://wiki.euain.org/doku.php?id=wiki:glossary, which covers terms used in the report, though we have tried to explain these where necessary.

Models

What do we mean by models of provision?

Models are a combination of the following factors:

• The methods and organisation of the delivery of the materials to the ultimate customer, whether a person in their home, an employee, a school pupil or a university student, and whether they want reading matter for leisure, work, education or other purposes
• The way alternative format materials themselves are created and made available, including the criteria for selection, format types and equipment supply, any involvement by commercial publishers, and prevailing copyright exceptions
• The relationship between services for visually impaired people and people who have other types of print-impairment
• The source(s) and extent of funding of the services
• Policy formation and political/governmental structures governing the services
• How success is measured

This study investigated the particular ways in which these factors are articulated together, and in so far as we could, we have tried to determine how successful each of the models is, and what lessons may be learned from them in other countries.

Since the models do not exist in a vacuum, we also asked a series of questions about definitions, rights and prevailing attitudes, as well as trends for the future. In many cases models are being changed as a result of policy decisions, campaigns and technological change. Many special projects and initiatives are under way. We have tried to discern where some of these trends are going.