Hi Dave.
It's fine saying that universities should provide the materials in a
format that we as visually impaired people need, but in reality, they
will not, unless a fuss is made. I telephoned both Jordonhill Collage
and the Caledonian University in Glasgow, to arrange access into their
libraries and was told, some four weeks later, that I'd have to pay
something like £25.00 for membership. Goodness knows what would happen
if I asked them to record a particular book for me. The thing that gets
me is that the RNIB claim to be supporting vip people and seek out
donations throughout the land, which often tug at the heart strings of
fully sighted people., Just look at their web site. I'm beginning to
think that it suits the RNIB and others, that so many of us, so called
blind people are not in employment nor fully integrated into society.
Education is indeed the key and the RNIB should recognise that and make
it clear that they are encouraging and supporting vip students on their
web sites. Furthermore, there should be practible assistance and support
made easily available, and definitely, vip students should not have to
pay over £10.00 for a catalogue of information for students.
Smile, though nothing really changes eh?
Best wishes.
Andy
----- Original Message -----
From: "David Taylor" <groups.dave@xxxxxxxxxxxxxx>
To: <access-uk@xxxxxxxxxxxxx>
Sent: Wednesday, September 20, 2006 12:13 PM
Subject: [access-uk] Re: RNIB Student Library Booklist on Counselling
Hi,
OK. let me give some context here. I declare an interest in that I used
to work in a similar area of RNIB though I didn't have control of
library services.
RNIB has a certain amount of money it can spend on subsidising services.
In recent years, they have been trying to use that to the best effect.
Therefore, if the service could, or should, be provided by somebody
else, they don't recreate it. Universities are responsible for ensuring
courses are accessible now by law, so they should be the people that use
the library. After all, they provide all their other students with a
library, so why not us too? Why would we not be able to go to our uni
library and sort things out there and then, rather than having to chase
round? Now I know it doesn't actually work like that, but that is where
we should really be, and unis would pay, just like they would pay for
regular library stock etc. That means, in theory, we still get our books
and RNIB can subsidise something else.
In reality, such arrangements will not cover everybody in the
foreseeable future though, so they can't just withdraw library services
from us.
I do agree that they don't make it easy to find out about publications
though and that working age people get the worst deal from RNIB. I do
know a visually impaired person who does a lot of their employment work
now, and he does talk to lots of employers and try to raise awareness as
well as running various new services. You might like to look for their
"work matters" strategy to see what they've done, or not done! Nobody
can do everything though!
Cheers
Dave
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