On November 17th ALIA Disability had their Disability and Inclusion Professionals Webinar. The forth ALIA Disability Webinar for 2022 that started with Training for library staff in May.

Panel guests included Caren Burns, Kerrianne Roberston, Lilly Sanchez, James Nicholson, ALIA CEO Vicki Edmunds and ALIA QLD State Manager Stephen Harris.

What can we learn from disability and inclusion officers?

How can we better support staff living with disability?

Caren Burns and Kerrianne Robertson spoke about their experiences living with a disability, studying and working with a disability.

Caren’s advice for library inclusion:

• Libraries need to include Alt-text for all images on their websites and social media. As this makes library content accessible for people using screen readers.
• Do not assume that all electronic formats online are accessible – some formats are not accessible for screen readers.

Kerrianne Robertson, Masters of Information Services at Charles Sturt University shared her experience working as library assistant as a deaf person. She also spoke about the United Nations Convention on the Rights of Persons with Disabilities.

Kerrianne’s advice:

• Libraries need to have have good lighting to be inclusive of people living with vision and hearing disabilities.
• Libraries should have continued disability awareness training for new and current staff that discusses changes in trends and technology.

Lilly Sanchez shared her experience working with staff with different disabilities.

James Nicholson from Morton Bay Regional Libraries shared what Disability and Inclusion Programming available at MBRL.

James chatted about IDAHOBIT (International Day against Homophobia, Biphobia, Intersexism and Transphobia) and Next Chapter Book Club and SENSEational Play, All Abilities Playground Story Times.

• Be authentic
• Build trust in the community
• Have fun

Stephen Harris, ALIA State Manager for Queensland from Bundaburg Libraries for inclusive volunteering and considering employing people with disabilities.

Stephen’s advice for employing people with disabilities is to craft the roles to the interest of the person.

Explore the ALIA Disability link below for the Disability and Inclusion Webinar.

Reference:

ALIA National. (2022, November 17). ALIA Disability – Disability and Inclusion Professionals [Video]. YouTube.

Join ALIA Disability for their Open Mic Event on December 14th!

Registration closes in 3 days.

Register via this ALIA Disability Open Mic link via the ALIA Events List.