library services for patrons with disabilities

At the CAL Conference last month, I attended a workshop on some of the best projects to which LSTA awarded special grants. One of the projects was done by the Pueblo City/County Library as it added some assistive technologies for people with disabilites to better use the library services. I also checked out some of the services available for people with disabilities at the Denver Public Library at this link http://denverlibrary.org/about/disabilities.html
An online handout about the Pueblo City/County Library's project is available at http://www.cal-webs.org/handouts08/diverse.pdf

Online Community for the Disabled

Dr. Glen House is the co-founder of an online community exclusively targeting those with disabilities and those whose lives they touch. He brings a personal insight to this as he became a quadriplegic nearly 2 decades ago after a skiing accident. Disaboom.com made its debut in 2007 and has components including health information, living forward with a disability and community, where you can blog, meet others, create a network and share stories.

The disabled community-including those affected (an estimate of 54 million) medical professionals, relatives, friends, employers and coworkers affected- is huge, estimated at 180 million and growing. The greatest need within this community is sharing information. The website topped one million hits in November.