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During the 1980s' Decade of the Disabled, legislation, advocacy activities, and special programs stimulated increased awareness of the rights of people with disabilities for better access to education, employment, housing, and information. In response to the growing need for easier access to information found in a public library, staff at the Phoenix Public Library designed a library Special Needs Center to make the services and resources of the library totally accessible. The following policy and mission statements illustrate this effort.

When it comes to establishing a computing environment that genuinely accommodates the range of human abilities, librarians are both cognizant of needs and capable of fulfilling those needs. They are cognizant of needs because almost everyone uses some sort of technology—glasses, adjustable chairs, computer wrist pads, Braille printers—to adjust a computing environment to his or her particular ability range. They are capable of fulfilling those needs because, even if they know nothing about making computers accessible to people with disabilities, they know how to obtain essential knowledge about their libraries: budget, needs of their clientele, current and planned computing systems, and a range of other crucial factors.

Launching a talking catalog takes some time, but it is not technically difficult.

Under the Americans with Disabilities Act (ADA), companies must provide customers with disabilities access to their “physical” stores. With the advent of the pure Web store, some wonder if the ADA will extend into “cyberspace”. So, are companies ready? This study assesses Web sites to determine their readiness. Results reveal that only 9 percent of the sites have accessible home pages.

Discusses the benefits of multimedia access to computer systems for blind people. Considers the advantages of Braille, speech systems, the consequent need for a multimedia approach, paperless Braille displays, the need to transcribe information, computer‐assisted library service, and the cost implications of these services.