This staff spotlight article was written by Sam Meunier, Development and Outreach Officer to talk about supporting accessibility and new guides to our locations.
I have been working as a Development and Outreach Officer since January 2022. A lot of my time is spent the behind the scenes – planning and programming. I work with partners and the library teams to deliver events or initiatives, like this story telling event a few years ago at Bath Abbey.
As well as outreach, one of the things I really enjoy about my job is being able to develop our services to support access for all customers. Working with Annette, the Team Leader in Midsomer Norton, we are focused on improving access information about our services.
Producing Large Print Access Guides
Our libraries and information advice services are free and available to all customers and residents living in Bath and North East Somerset. We understand that some of our customers may be vulnerable, have additional needs or disabilities. Some may need extra support and information to make their visit or interaction with us as easy as possible.
There are lots of different projects we’ve been working on to support accessibility. Most recently, the RNIB delivered staff training to help us understand how visual impairment or blindness impacts access to our services.
When we opened our first Sensory Space in Bath Central Library in 2022, we created accessibility guides to our locations and the Sensory Space. These are picture based. These types of guides or social stories can be helpful for people who may have Autism and similar conditions.
In offering Sensory Spaces (now in all three of our core libraries), we wanted to make sure the customers we were encouraging to visit us felt prepared for their visit. These guides don’t provide information someone with mobility needs might need to have when planning a visit though.
Although we have information on the Council website about accessibility, this year we’ve been looking at how we can improve the information we make available and how to do this in different ways.
Working with Accessibility Champions
From June 2024, we’ve had an Accessibility Champion in each of our locations. This is a member of staff who takes part in accessibility related projects. They will attend training and help share this information with their teams.
We have a brilliant group of Accessibility Champions. Their first task has been to work on new Large Print Access Guides which we hope will be useful to anyone who wants to know more about our spaces but primarily for our disabled customers and carers.
I’ve been working with the champions, walking around their spaces – thinking about access from the moment you arrive, entering or leaving the building and what it’s like when you’re inside. Champions have been measuring widths of entrances, heights of desks and looking at what facilities and stock we have.
It’s been lovely to work closely with the champions in each team. It’s been great to have the excuse to go into each place and ask lots of nosey questions – like whether there is a noisy hand drier in the toilet or which way a door opens. I think the process has hopefully made us all a little bit more aware of our spaces, what we would like to improve if we could and how to make the best of what we have.
There was so much important information to include in each guide and every piece of information gathered is the result of time spent by each champion reviewing or measuring things. Knowing how much time and effort was put into the draft guides, it has been a real challenge to edit and condense the information. Ensuring that the layout and content is similar across all the guides, whilst also recognising that all our locations are different.
As well as our champions being involved, we’ve had lots of support and engagement from staff including one of our apprentices, Izzy, who works in Bath Central Library. Having involvement from lots of people who bring their own perspectives has been really valuable. It was important that the guides were written collaboratively to make sure they were comprehensive in their coverage.
We can’t always offer the newest technology or most expensive resources to help customers access our services and we are in the buildings we are in. What we can do though, is make every customer’s experience a little bit better by preparing them for what to expect when they come to us.
Where to find the Guides
The Large Print Access Guides available in all our locations- so ask for them on the main information desk when you visit.
We’ve also put them here on our Virtual Library on the individual location pages. These can be browsed or downloaded and printed before your visit. We’re very excited to make them available.
What’s next?
The next thing we hope to do is to produce a more visual guide to our locations which will also be available on the Virtual Library – so please watch this space, as we embark on our next project to create audio visual guides about visiting our spaces.
It’s not just our physical spaces we’re developing! We have worked with the Digital Culture Network to ensure our Virtual Library is accessible to all users, and we will continually review it and make improvements. Read our Accessibility Statement to find out more.
If your interested in finding out more about our resources and the services we provide to support access for all, please visit this page on the Virtual Library. You will find links to our other accessibility guides, book recommendations and resources for wellbeing, plus information about our Sensory Spaces and Sensory Explorer Bags.