Accessibility can be viewed as the “ability to access” and benefit from some system or entity. It is about the effort we put in to make sure everyone can access and benefit from services despite any barrier. The concept often focuses on people with disabilities or special needs and their right of access, but accessibility is good for everyone. The first thing to think about in planning, whether it's serving a patron, conducting an event or program or having the right physical and virtual space in your library, is to consider if there is a barrier that would prevent anyone of any ability to participate. Accessibility is about offering the same experience to all regardless of how the individual interacts with the world, with the ultimate outcome that everything is made better for everyone.
Inclusion and accessibility often run hand in hand with one effecting the other. It is important to remember that just because something is offered or available so that it is inclusive of all people, that doesn't mean everyone will have the means to overcome any of the barriers to access the same thing. The combination of inclusion and accessibility is important in planning any event, program or service.
In 1990 the Americans with Disabilities Act (ADA) was passed. This meant that tens of thousands of businesses, government organizations and everywhere someone with a disability needed to access would need to offer accommodations to those with disabilities. At this time, many cities, towns and various municipalities adapted sidewalks and crosswalks by creating what is known as a Curb Cut. This is literally a cut in the curb to provide a kind of ramp over a curb in the sidewalk for wheelchairs. Along these lines many business and organization put in access ramps on their buildings and automatic opening doors. Soon after these adaptations become more commonplace, delivery drivers, people with baby strollers and those with wheeled luggage discovered that because of this accommodation for wheelchairs, they could use these curb cuts and ramps to make their lives in moving wheeled objects easier. People carrying packaging and boxes in their arms now had an automated way to open a door without having to put these items down.
This behavior of providing an accommodation for one disability and having it be used for other purposes, mainly by those without the disability, has become known as the Curb Cut Effect. Beyond the of ramps and automated doors for just wheeled conveyances, the Curb Cut Effect can also more broadly be used to describe any kind of accommodation being used by all people, not just those with disabilities. For example closed captioning of television programs to allow dialogue to not just be seen but better understood by anyone who can read the captions.
This type of behavior by all illustrates why accessibility is good for everyone and why we need to think of accessibility in terms outside of just disabled persons and look at it as for the greater good of our patrons and staff.
In a broader context, even the simple act of using large type fonts, 14 points or larger, and bold text in your email signature or the projected presentation you make, you are using accessibility accommodations for the greater good. Having something easier to read and understand should be the goal.
Going back in American History, another curb cut helped create the Music Recording Industry on phonograph record. It was Alexander Graham Bell who invented the phono record player for the main purpose of providing audio books to be read to blind people. Out of that came the standard record player, the record album and music for the masses was never the same. Accessibility is good for everyone.