As Lily Primeaux, library associate at the Austin (Tex.) Public Library, was setting up the system’s first Disability Dialogues Book Club meeting in April, she wasn’t sure what to expect. “We were in the small meeting room,” she recalls. “Most staff didn’t think we’d get a high turnout.”
She soon realized they’d underestimated the community’s interest. About 15 people turned up, which Primeaux calls “unprecedented for a minimally advertised adult book club at APL.” She adds, “My coworkers were bringing in chairs, trying to fit everyone, and there was no AC. It got so hot, but nobody left. Nobody left even when it was over; everybody stayed to keep talking.”
Primeaux’s desire for solidarity as a late-diagnosed autistic woman inspired Disability Dialogues, which meets monthly at the APL’s Yarborough branch to discuss disability justice nonfiction: to date, Eric Garcia’s We’re Not Broken; Disability Visibility, edited by Alice Wong; and Leah Lakshmi Piepzna-Samarasinha’s Care Work.
“Spaces dedicated to disabled, chronically ill, and neurodivergent folks, or even just conversations about the realities of our experiences, are hard to find,” Primeaux says. Across the country, librarians are working to improve the narrative.
Building connections
Eight years ago, Angela Meyers, coordinator for youth and inclusive services at Bridges Library System in Wisconsin’s Waukesha and Jefferson counties, learned that an area coffee shop’s memory café—a social gathering for people with dementia and their caregivers—“was bursting at the seams.” She suggested to her local Alzheimer’s Association that public libraries could provide a space for such get-togethers, and the Library Memory Project was born.
“In 2015, we had four libraries partnering to provide memory cafés,” Meyers recalls. “Now we have 21. People go from café to café, having fun and connecting with one another.”
Amrita Patel, outreach specialist at the Charlotte Mecklenburg (N.C.) Library, is enthusiastic about forming such partnerships. “I don’t just go in and say, ‘Hey, this is what I do,’ ” she says. “It’s more like, ‘This is what I can do. What are you looking for, and how can we blend the two together?’ ”
Patel, who also serves on the board of Disability Rights & Resources, a local nonprofit, sees herself as a “community connector,” integrating rather than duplicating services, ensuring the community knows what’s available, and soliciting feedback. “I speak with every program participant to learn a little bit about their preferred learning styles and how we can embed our resources,” she says. In a community college–sponsored program for recent high school graduates with disabilities, for example, she has responded to a demand for workforce training resources. During adaptive story times, she offers flexibility in how children participate: “If a child wants to come up and play with the materials on the table, they’re welcome to.”
In Northampton, Mass., Forbes Library invites community feedback at informal Accessibility Advisory Board meetings. Benjamin Kalish, the board’s chair, says these public discussions have led to such innovations as eliminating scented cleaning products and offering assistive technology training sessions.
Meeting people where they are
The librarians PW spoke with emphasized the importance of making materials and services easy to access, and sometimes that means bringing collections to patrons rather than the other way around. Meyers totes books to memory cafés so participants can check them out on the spot. Every program Patel’s involved with connects to a library resource, she says, adding that the library’s Exceptional Experiences team meets regularly to assess what’s working and what isn’t. “Are there any gaps in services? Any issues with our community feeling welcome?”
Kalish shares that mindset. “We try to anticipate, so that, hopefully, we can make things better before someone needs to ask,” he says. For instance, Forbes Library created online search widgets for people with hearing or visual impairments that automatically filter out inaccessible materials. Previously, limiting a search to closed-captioned or described videos required users to conduct an advanced search with a precise subject heading.
At Bridges Library System, Meyers facilitates periodic “ADA scans” performed by local experts. “The libraries receive a written report with barriers and recommendations on how to remove them,” she says.
Even small changes, such as providing space for wheelchair-accessible seating at every table and using microphones during all programming, improve access. One Wisconsin library opens children’s programs an hour early for anyone who has additional sensory needs, so they can settle in when things are a little quieter.
“It’s becoming more ingrained in our everyday work lives,” Meyers says. “Whether it’s a program or a service or something they’re changing in the library building, accessibility is becoming part of that planning process. It’s not an afterthought.”
After only three meetings of the Disability Dialogues Book Club, Primeaux has already improved accessibility, offering flexible seating and virtual participation for people who can’t access the physical space. Plus, now they use the big meeting room.
“I’m paying attention all the time,” she says, sharing wisdom from June’s book club selection, Care Work. “Accessibility is a process. You’re always choosing to do it.” And those choices have an impact: “People are effusive about how grateful they are to have a space to talk about disability. Community is happening.”
Susan Metallo is a neurodivergent public librarian and author. Her fiction has appeared in Cricket Media magazines and the Seven Hills Review.
