Access and Agency: Welcoming the Disabled Community at Public Libraries

To register for this webinar please follow this link: https://zoom.us/webinar/register/1417320151524/WN_sqSU7Vo1RfyfXdw2M-j24A. Sessions are free and available only to members of the Michigan library community. Registrants will receive instructions and a link to attend the session directly from PCI after they register.

From Sensory Storytimes to Disability Justice Book Clubs, libraries around the country push beyond the basics of ADA compliance to welcome disabled patrons at the library. But how do these libraries reach disabled library users and determine their information needs?

In 2023 on behalf of Publishers Weekly, author and public librarian Susan Metallo interviewed librarians about their challenges and successes in serving disabled patrons. In this webinar, Susan shares best practices and lessons-learned from these proactive programs. She also recommends a framework for developing library services that empower the disabled community to engage with the public library, crafted both from her research and from her lived experience as a disabled library-lover.

Attendees will learn:

• Who belongs to the broad and diverse disabled community, how to reach them, and what language and behavior will signal welcome and respect.
• Different marketing strategies for disabled patrons and for non-disabled caregivers of disabled people (e.g., parents of disabled children, family members of patrons with Alzheimers).
• How to make your collection more accessible and relevant to disabled patrons.
• Strategies for giving disabled patrons agency and input in decisions about services and policies that will affect them.

Instructor: Susan Metallo is a neurodivergent author, librarian, and Publishers Weekly contributor. Her debut novel, Reasons to Hate Me—winner of the 2022 SCBWI Young Adult Work-in-Progress Award and the 2022 Seven Hills Literary Contest for Young Adult Literature—will be released Fall 2025 from Candlewick Press and features themes of honesty, agency, and disability justice against the backdrop of hilarious high school misadventures. Find her online at www.susanmetallo.com.

PCI Webinars are recorded and available to members of the Michigan library community in the Library of Michigan's Niche Staff Skills Academy about a week after they air. New webinars will be in the New category for several weeks. You do not need to register for a webinar in order to view it later in the Staff Skills Academy.

This project is made possible by grant funds from the U.S. Institute of Museum and Library Services (IMLS) administered by the State of Michigan through the Library of Michigan.