Last week, I attended an excellent webinar put together by DPI about Universal Design/Universal Design for Learning, and how these concepts can inform our work as librarians to make our libraries more welcoming and inclusive of everyone in the community. The webinar was recorded, and is available here (hint: look under Professional Development). I highly recommend taking a listen, but to sum up a few of the points I that stuck with me:
- Stepping up very intentional welcome efforts
- Create videos for your website that explain how to do things (place a hold, etc.)
- Take a look at your signs and layout, and make sure that you recognize different users (for instance, if you have a large Somali or Hmong population, maybe signs should be bilingual)
- Figure out ways to make it clear what the library offers, so people don't have to dig for it
- Carefully consider the learning and information needs of all community members when you are making decisions about how to do programming, collection development, and policy-setting
- Think about both physical access to your services, but also intellectual access
There is more to consider here. I'm sure that there are more ways for me to incorporate these ideas into my practice at the system level, please let me know if you have suggestions for me! Labels: continuing education, universal design
