106. Deutscher Bibliothekartag in Frankfurt am Main 2017
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5 slides
Wars in Syria, Afghanistan and Iraq, severe repression and spiraling instability across many Arab and African countries have all contributed to the displacement of around 50 million refugees worldwide. Speaking in terms of refugees and migrants, many of them have risked their lives crossing the Mediterranean to reach a somewhat safe haven and the hope of a better future in Europe. In Norway, the wave of migrants hit the country in fall 2015, pushing all the official institutions to the limit. Even though the Norwegian Government had planned different scenarios on how to handle eventual situations, the large amount of people that had found their way so far up North took everyone by surprise. Even The Multilingual Library, a national library service in charge of acquiring literature in minority languages to all public libraries across Norway, felt the heat when suddenly 8000 newcomers arrived to Norway in a two months period of time. While they waited for a ruling on their fate, all the migrants were asking for one thing: literature in their native languages. Because when you have lost everything - every single thing you knew, everything you've possessed and everything you did hold dearly, what can mean more than finding rest in what you still carry with you: your past, your identity, your mother language?
Skype book club is a youthyoung adult project that started with the simple idea of combining a love for literature with an appreciation for anthropological ideas of cultural diversity. As a result we have brought together young people from different countries and backgrounds in order to help them see the great value they are able to offer to each other with their unique world views. Through these interactions we hope to increase communication between people of different countries and to decrease intolerance and the fear of "the other".
Following the UN Convention on the Rights of Persons with Disabilities, Universal Design (UD) is a crucial tool for the social, economic, and cultural inclusion of people with disabilities. But UD means more than just accessible or barrier free. It is about designing services, products, environments, and programs in a way that makes them usable for as many individuals as possible while not exclude further assistance or devices for people with disabilities. Although the United States and the European Union both offer a legislative and normative framework for accessibility, e.g. the Americans with Disabilities Act (ADA), the approach to accessibility and barrier free design is mainly focused on deficits, not on enabling or empowering. This is true for library spaces and services as well. With digitalization and automation of their media and services, and the turn to user-centered design (UCD) of spaces and services, libraries have the chance to radically improve the accessibility and usability of their respective services and facilities. But there are still legal, cultural and financial challenges to a holistic UD approach in libraries. The double presentation will introduce the principles of UD and highlight the challenges and chances of UD for libraries from an American and a German perspective. Language: English