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Deaf people at the library have very similar needs to other people and often have more difficulty accessing materials and services. Over the last few decades, libraries in the United States have begun to implement services and collections for deaf patrons and are working harder every year to make more of their collections, services, their communities, and even the world more accessible. ==History== The history of the role of libraries in the deaf community is a sordid one at best. The American Library Association readily admits that disabled people belong to a minority that is often overlooked and under represented by people in the library, and the Deaf community belongs in this minority group (American Library Association, 2012). One of the first activists in the library community working toward accessibility for the deaf was Alice Lougee Hagemeyer, who was deaf herself, and most active in the 1970s and 1980s. Australian librarian Karen McQuigg stated in 2003 that "even ten years ago, when I was involved in a project looking at what public libraries could offer the deaf, it seemed as if the gap between the requirements of this group and what public libraries could offer was too great for public libraries to be able to serve them effectively" (McQuigg, 2003). Clearly, not even so long ago, there was quite a dearth of information for or about the deaf community available in libraries across the nation and around the globe. New guidelines from library organizations such as International Federation of Library Associations and Institutions (IFLA) and the ALA were written in order to help libraries make their information more accessible to people with disabilities, and in some cases, specifically the Deaf community. IFLA’s ''Guidelines for Library Services to Deaf People'' is one such set of guidelines, and it was published to inform libraries of the services that should be provided for Deaf patrons. Most of the guidelines pertain to ensuring that Deaf patrons have equal access to all available library services. Other guidelines include training library staff to provide services for the Deaf community, availability of text telephones or TTYs not only to assist patrons with reference questions but also for making outside calls, using the most recent technology in order to communicate more effectively with deaf patrons, including closed captioning services for any television services, and developing a collection that would interest the members of the deaf community.(Day, 2000, p. 12-22) Over the years, library services have begun to evolve in order to accommodate the needs and desires of local deaf communities. At the Queens Borough Public Library (QBPL) in New York, the staff implemented new and innovative ideas in order to involve the community and library staff with the Deaf people in their community. The QBPL hired a deaf librarian, Lori Stambler, to train the library staff about deaf culture, to teach sign language classes for family members and people who are involved with deaf people, and to teach literacy classes for deaf patrons. In working with the library, Stambler was able to help the community reach out to its deaf neighbors, and helped other deaf people become more active in their outside community (Hollander, 1995). 抄文引用元・出典: フリー百科事典『 ウィキペディア（Wikipedia）』 ■ウィキペディアで「Libraries and the deaf community」の詳細全文を読む スポンサード リンク
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