Creating an Inclusive Physical Environment in Your Library
Creating an Inclusive Physical Environment in Your Library
Topic 4: Creating an Inclusive Physical Environment in Your Library
One easy way libraries can begin to become more inclusive and accessible to those with ASD is to make simple modifications to the library's physical environment. One way that libraries can become more autism friendly is to reduce sensory stimulation. Lights, especially fluorescent lights, can be overly stimulating for those with ASD. You can lower the light levels or turn off some fluorescent lights. Sensory stimulation can also be reduced by reducing clutter and keeping spaces open and without distractions. Another way to reduce sensory stimulation is to provide a quiet, private, sensory friendly area that people can use if they need it. If possible, the library could be open special hours just for people with ASD so they can use the library when it is completely sensory friendly.
As explained in detail in Topic 3, another way libraries can adapt their visual environment to make it more accessible to those with ASD is to provide lots of visual signage. Have a map of your library available at the front desk or on your website. An added bonus is if you indicate areas that are less noisy and crowded on the map. Be sure to also have signage that clearly marks the bathrooms, drinking fountains, and quiet areas. Signs should include images, not just words. Finally, consider creating a social story about a library visit and making it available. You can find an example of a library social story on the Northport-East Northport (New York) Public Library's website, and again, there is much more information about this in Topic 3.
You can learn more about creating an autism friendly library environment in this video, 5 Essentials for Engineering the Library Environment to Meet the Needs of the Autism Community, from the 2017 Targeting Autism Forum.
Image Credit:
Changing light bulb. [Photography]. Retrieved from Encyclopædia Britannica ImageQuest.
Autism in the Library: A First Person Account
Many students with disabilities experience a lack of support on campus as a result of a lack of accessibility measures being taken by their universities. Here, one person with disabilities explains how and why that lack affects students with disabilities in the long run:
Most students and academics are familiar with the experience of "library anxiety" -- that is, the feeling of a library being overwhelming for someone who is new to it and needing to navigate it independently for the first time. The lights, the new website and a new search engine, even the new furniture and shelving arrangements can add up into making your average student very anxious.
This sensation is intensified for those of us on the spectrum. Many people with neurodevelopmental disorders like autism and ADHD experience something called sensory overload at a much lower threshold than those who do not have a neurodevelopmental disability. This means that the noise of students talking, the buzz and the intensity of fluorescent lights, and the non-intuitive navigability of a website can make us shut down or make us have serious anxiety, and as a result it might mean that we avoid the library entirely. Even if the library is chock full of resources for students, if the library is inadvertently hostile to students with disabilities, that means that those students will avoid the library -- and its resources -- and not get that kind of support that their classmates who don't have autism or ADHD might be getting.
For example, I have both autism and ADHD. The library was the most frequented spot on my campus as an undergraduate, but because of the noisy atmosphere and the fluorescent lighting it meant that I couldn't consistently use the space without risking burning myself out even more than I already was. As a result, I had to do most of my work by myself, confined to my dorm room.
This reality meant several things.
First, I wasn't able to do research at the library and use research materials and services consistently like my classmates, which meant I had to pull from external resources that weren't as consistent or as reliable for my academic endeavors. Secondly, since I wasn't able to go to the library, I couldn't frequent it as a "third space" and make friends, therefore cordoning me off from my classmates socially due to my disabilities. And finally, job events were often hosted at the library where students would be able to come in and have their resumes and cover letters looked at by librarians and other professionals to give edits and give advice. This -- along with other types of events that had a similar notion to them -- since they were in a hostile environment to someone like me, was thus also not available to me and other people like me who had issues in the space related to sensory overload. Hence, as an undergraduate I suffered academically, socially, and professionally due to a lack of accessibility measures within the library's inherent structure.