December 05, 2018 | Dr. Ruth Small, Director, Project ENABLE
Project ENABLE's Treasure Trove of Resources
Have you searched Project's ENABLE's database of resources? It has over 1000 resources that are searchable by type of disability, audience (by grade level or adult), format (from books to reports, to videos to websites) and keyword (free text). When you visit a resource, you will find additional information [reference information, a summary of the content, the type of content (e.g., nonfiction, fiction), and length. When you see your screen(s) of hits, you can see from 10 to 100 hits per screen.
I did a couple of sample searches to see if and how it worked. My first search was to find some information on disabilities and inventors (keyword) for my next blog post. I didn't limit the type of disability, audience or format. My search listed four resources, one website and three blogs, two appropriate for both adults or high school students, two for middle school students and two for primary and intermediate grades. One of the books, "Calling All Minds: How to Think and Create Like an Inventor," was authored by well-known author with autism, Temple Grandin.
Dr. Marilyn Arnone and I have partnered with Califa/InfoPeople, a nonprofit library membership consortium offering continuing education and professional development opportunities to library staff in and out of California. Together, we wrote and submitted a preproposal to IMLS to expand and enhance current training (e.g., Project ENABLE, InfoPeople training) available to library and archives professionals for providing effective service to patrons with disabilities. If they like it, we'll be writing a full grant proposal to IMLS.
So, for my second search I decided to search for all types of materials related to how libraries (keyword) seek to accommodate adults with disabilities. This time I got 53 hits, including articles, videos, websites, documents, books, and a blog, most certainly a treasure trove of information that will support and enhance what we are proposing
The uses for these resources are limited only by your imagination. For example, you can search for resources to use for book talks for upper elementary students, teaching high school students the science behind some disabilities, story times for young children, research projects for middle schoolers, etc.
When you need to find information about people with disabilities, we hope you will choose the Project ENABLE resource database as your starting point.
