Archives for the 21st Century
Response from Share The Vision
1.
Share The Vision [STV] welcomes this consultation on developing a new
national strategy for publicly funded archives to replace the existing
1999 government policy.
STV was established in 1989 as a UK-wide partnership of the main
voluntary sector organisations which produce and lend alternative format
materials which meet the reading and information needs of visually
impaired and other print disabled people and the main bodies for
publicly funded libraries. Our objective is to enhance co-operative
working within and between the sectors in order to enhance access to
content for visually impaired citizens.
2.
Whilst our original efforts were concerned with increasing the availability
of and access to materials in the traditional alternative formats of Braille,
Moon, Audio and Large Print, the technological developments in the last
10 years or more have revolutionised our work. Whilst traditional
alternative formats remain crucial for accessibility, the digital age has
transformed the production of alternative formats; assistive technology
has presented new opportunities for visually impaired people to access
content in different ways that suit their needs and skills and the amount
of content which is now potentially available to them has grown
exponentially.
STV’s role has therefore evolved to address these new opportunities
and challenges by
 ensuring that a basic national online catalogue of alternative formats
is freely available
 ensuring that staff have online access to best practice guidance
 encouraging the provision of assistive technology in libraries
 campaigning to ensure that websites and digital content meet
accessibility guidelines
 urging the Legal Deposit Advisory Panel to ensure that it takes full
account of the needs of disabled people in developing its
recommendations to the Secretary of State on formulating regulations
to implement the Legal Deposit Libraries Act, 2003
 campaigning with other bodies nationally and internationally to ensure
copyright law at the national, European and international levels
assists rather than prevents access to content by disabled people.
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3.
It has always been difficult for archive services to make manuscript and
print contents available to blind and partially sighted users, although
much can be done using magnification equipment and by producing
accessible transcripts of documents as required. The digital age
presents new challenges but also new opportunities to ensure that
unique primary sources are accessible to blind and partially sighted
people, and other disabled people. Share the Vision believes that it is
essential that these challenges and opportunities are addressed in the
strategy.
4.
In general terms, we believe that this consultation document is a well
drafted, clear and admirably brief exposition of the current position and
the challenges faced by archives in ensuring they are fit for purpose in
the digital age. We also agree with your recommendations to ensure that
they are better organised to achieve this.
Unfortunately, the vision for the future set out in section 2.1 states
“Access to publicly funded archives should be available to every citizen”
and goes on to mention the needs of young people and old people but
not disabled people. Elsewhere in the document there are rightly
references to ethnic minority communities but nowhere are disabled
people mentioned.
5.
It is important to remember that all publicly funded archives have a
statutory Disability Equality Duty to promote “equality of opportunity
between disabled persons and other people” and to “take steps to meet
disabled people’s needs, even if this requires more favourable
treatment.” Furthermore, on 8 June 2009 the UK ratified the UN
Convention on the Rights of Persons with Disabilities. Article 21[a] of the
Convention requires the provision of “information for the general public
to persons with disabilities in accessible formats and technologies
appropriate to different kinds of disabilities in a timely manner and
without additional cost.” Digital technology - if used effectively - will help
the archive profession to meet these requirements. In doing so they will
extend their customer base to the more than 3 million UK citizens who
are estimated to be print disabled, and many more worldwide.
6.
Therefore, we would recommend that the final policy document makes
explicit the duty, and the tools available, to ensure that archive materials
are made accessible to all disabled people, including blind, partially
sighted and print disabled people. We suggest that services would be
made much more accessible by ensuring that:
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a. All archive websites comply with the Web Accessibility Guidelines, as
required by the Government’s instructions for public websites.
b. Online catalogues of holdings conform to the metadata standards
developed by UKOLN which take account of the resource finding
needs of visually impaired people.
c. Guidelines are developed to ensure that all online catalogues include
sufficient, searchable, data on the physical characteristics and
technical requirements of records, and the existence of location of
copies, to meet the requirements of blind, partially sighted and print
disabled people. We would be pleased to work with the archival
community to identify the data necessary to allow blind, partially
sighted and print disabled users to search for material which is
already available in an appropriate format or which can be viewed in
an accessible format through the use of assistive technology.
d. Archive digitisation projects, whether in-house or in partnership with
outside collaborators, are designed to ensure that access by disabled
people is enhanced rather than prevented, as is often the case with
commercial productions.
e. All publicly funded archive repositories review the provision of
assistive technologies available for use in search rooms to ensure the
best possible access for disabled people, including blind, partially
sighted and print disabled people.
f. All such accessible services, online and in-house, are effectively
marketed to disabled people, who may otherwise continue to assume
that access to archives remains very limited.
g. The archives profession seeks to work with record creators to ensure
that records are created, from the outset, in formats accessible to
disabled people, to ensure the increasing accessibility of the archives
of the future.
Whilst it may not be possible to include all these points in the Strategy
itself, we would hope that they will be addressed in the Implementation
Plans to follow.
7. The weakness of this document in terms of addressing the needs of
disabled people is confirmed by the “Equality Impact Assessment” which
is appended. The response to Question 4, “Will the policy have an
impact on national or local people/staff?” refers to the impact on ethnic
minority groups, socially excluded groups and older citizens but not
disabled people.
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Similarly, the response to Question 11 regarding the potential impact on
the 7 Equality Target Areas provides the same response for disability as
for 5 other target areas; race, gender, gender identity, religion and belief
and sexual orientation, and only varies for age. No reasons or
comments are given.
Nowhere in the document is there any recognition of disabled people's
need for accessible information and communication formats, or the
exclusion which disabled people experience when they cannot access
information. This is a significant differential impact which should have
been identified in the equality impact assessment.
We suggest that a suitable statement for the Equality Impact
Assessment would be that:
"It has always been difficult for archive services to make manuscript and
print contents available to blind and partially sighted users although
much can be done using magnification equipment and by producing
accessible transcripts of documents as required. The digital age
presents new challenges but also new opportunities to ensure that
unique primary sources are accessible to blind and partially sighted
people, and other disabled people".
NOTES
8.
The membership of STV comprises:
Calibre Audio Library
ClearVision Project
RNIB
British Library
Chartered Institute of Library and Information Professionals [CILIP]
Library and Information Services Council: Northern Ireland
Scottish Library and Information Council
Society of Chief [Public] Librarians
Society of College, National and University Libraries
Museums, Libraries and Archives Council [Observer]
CyMAL: Museums, Archives and Libraries Wales, a division of the
Welsh Assembly Government [Observer]
The School Libraries Group [CILIP]
9.
STV is content for this response to be made publicly available and is
willing to assist further in the development of the strategy, if required.
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Mark Freeman
Chair, Share the Vision
mark.freeman@southtyneside.gov.uk
Helen Brazier
Co-ordinator, Share the Vision
helen.brazier@rnib.org.uk
3 August 2009
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