Disabled patrons inspire library projects

More than a year after receiving the American Library Association’s $10,000 accessibility grant, new options are available for Gibson Memorial Library’s disabled patrons.

Acceptance of the Accessible Small and Rural Communities grant was approved in March 2025. However, in the following months, a number of road blocks came up as the library staff worked to bring forward the original vision, which focused on delivering material to disabled patrons.

“The main one was that we were not completely aware that large print and audio materials could be sent in the mail for free,” assistant director Jordan Foote said at the library board’s May meeting. “That’s where a lot of the budget was kind of set aside for.”

Foote said the library was also unable to find a company that would allow prepayment for postage, which was how the library was planning to spend much of the grant money.

“Instead we just bought physical postage,” Foote explained. “It’ll be a little bit more of a pain, but it’ll still be able to be done.”

Along with these two items, less people signed up for the program than originally expected. While the library will still be offering delivery, staff needed to find other ways to use the grant money before the April 30 deadline. Luckily, previous interviews with disabled patrons gave them some ideas.

“[The ALA] really wants you to spend the money as long as it’s still in accordance with the original community conversations you had,” Foote said. “What we did was, we had some comments about how our computers were not all that accessible, so we upgraded one of our computers to have an accessible keyboard and an accessible monitor. We’ve also put headphones at every computer so that if someone needs to do text to speech, they can do that right there.”

The keyboard is larger than the average and the buttons are bright yellow for contrast with the black letters. The monitor is also large.

The library also used the grant to increase the number of large print books available and bought tickets for the Southern Iowa Trolley.

“We also had comments saying that most people that were more stuck at home could not find rides during the day, so we went ahead and got trolley tickets as well,” Foote said. “That’ll hopefully be out within the next couple months. Folks can receive a bundle of trolley tickets once a quarter. We’ll keep a log of everyone that’s claimed them, and hopefully they’ll be able to come and visit us.”

In other library news...

The board approved a bid from Mount Ayr’s Podium Ink to place solar film with a design on a number of the library’s windows. While designs have not yet been chosen, the film will help protect the various library materials from fading in the sunlight.

Policy 21 has been updated to include vulnerable adults alongside unattended children. Updates ensure that, while the library is an open place for everyone, library staff are not responsible for the care and supervision of children or vulnerable adults.