• Title/Summary/Keyword: Libraries for the Blind

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A Study on Enhancing Web Accessibility for Visually Impaired People in Public Libraries (시각장애인을 위한 공공도서관의 웹 접근성 제고 방안)

  • Cho, Yoon-Hee
    • Journal of the Korean Society for Library and Information Science
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    • v.43 no.3
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    • pp.335-354
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    • 2009
  • In the knowledge and information society, there is an increasing importance of information, being unable to access this information becomes a huge disadvantage. Blind and visually impaired users who are using assistant equipment such as screen readers are the very class that is having trouble accessing the web content that public libraries provide. In this research 10% of each region's libraries were picked as a research sample. Most of the web content that the public libraries provided did not meet the Internet web content accessibility guidelines as a Korean standard. Also evaluation into web accessibility by the visually impaired was also low. This research suggests some solutions for libraries to reduce the disadvantages that are put upon visually impaired people from various views such as perceivable, operable, understandable, and robust.

A Study on the Information Needs and Behavior of Visually Handicapped (시각장애인의 정보요구 및 이용행태에 관한 연구 - 대구광역시립수성도서관 이용자를 중심으로 -)

  • Oh, Seon-Kyung
    • Journal of Information Management
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    • v.41 no.1
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    • pp.97-126
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    • 2010
  • Many visually handicapped people face difficulties with using libraries. Public libraries are thus required to meet the need of visually handicapped people. Public libraries should guarantee the visually handicapped the right to use appropriate services. If so, the visually handicapped can improve their life quality by decreasing information gap and increasing information comprehension or accessibility. This study is designed to analyze how visually handicapped people can use public libraries. Based on the analysis, this study can provide actual suggestions to improve opportunities for the visually handicapped to use libraries. Data are collected from visually handicapped people who are the members of Suseong Public Library, Daegu, Korea. In specific, this study can analyze various characteristics(i.e., information needs, selection and use behavior of information sources, difficulties and gaps to access information, use behavior and service satisfaction of public library) regarding their library use by telephone interviews.

A Study on the Influential Factors on the Organizational Commitment of Employees Working in Libraries for the Visually Impaired (시각장애인도서관 직원들의 조직몰입에 영향을 미치는 요인에 관한 연구)

  • Park, Seong-ho;Cho, Miah
    • Journal of the Korean BIBLIA Society for library and Information Science
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    • v.32 no.3
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    • pp.285-304
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    • 2021
  • The study has a purpose of understanding the factors that affect the oranizational commitment of the employees working in the libraries for visually impaired. To do this, the study chose personal background, emotional labor, role, job characteristics, organizational culture and organizational justice and attempted to find out how these factors affect the oranizational commitment. As a research method, mixed study method was used where quantitative analysis was complemented by qualitative analysis. For quantitative analysis, statistical analysis was conducted using the retrieved questionnaires. For qualitative analysis, the researcher had a one-on-one talk with the experts and employees who want to participate using an interview note was recomposed based on the survey responses. In the study results, emotional labor, job characteristics, organizational culture and organizational justice was proven to have influence on job engagement. To improve the job engagement, autonomy should be guaranteed by minimizing the organizational intervention to the assigned works and expanding the discretionary power. Furthermore, intensive management of the employees' emotional labor and fair process regarding the work performance is highly important.

The Marrakesh Treaty and the Tasks of Library Services for Persons with Disabilities (마라케시 조약과 도서관 장애인서비스 과제)

  • 윤희윤
    • Journal of the Korean Society for Library and Information Science
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    • v.56 no.3
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    • pp.73-91
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    • 2022
  • For everyone, books are not only a passage to break down temporal and spatial barriers, but also a passport to the world. However, books are neither a passage nor a passport for persons with print disabilities. They are suffering from a severe book famine, with only 1-7% of alternative materials in accessible formats. The Marrakesh Treaty is an international agreement promoted by the WBU and WIPO to reduce such access gaps and inequalities. Accordingly, this study intensively analyzed and linked the global book famine and the Marrakesh Treaty for the persons with print disabilities including the blind and visually impaired, and suggested strategic tasks and implementation plans to strengthen the services of the disabled in domestic libraries. The government and libraries should concentrate all their competencies on improving awareness, inducing standardization of alternative materials in the publishing industry, amending and supplementing the copyright act and related laws, strengthening the digital file collection and service of the National Library for the disabled, and developing and applying library guidelines to implement the Marrakesh Treaty. This is because if food supports the body of the disabled, reading fosters their spirit. In order to solve the global book famine for persons with print disabilities, it is necessary to improve the publishing industry's cartels, copyright holders' barricades, and the weak platform of the library industry. All copyright holders, publishers, and libraries should participate in reducing the 95% gap in access between non-disabled and disabled people. That is the mantra of the book famine.

Analysis and Implications of Private-led Library Services for the Disabled in Major Advanced Countries (주요 선진국 민간주도형 도서관 장애인서비스 분석과 시사점)

  • Yoon, Hee-Yoon
    • Journal of Korean Library and Information Science Society
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    • v.53 no.2
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    • pp.1-23
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    • 2022
  • Access to knowledge and information is a universal human right. However, even after the Marrakesh Treaty was adopted on June 27, 2013, only 1-7% of standard printed materials are accessible to people with reading disabilities, including the visually impaired, and library services are very weak. As a result, the book famine of people with reading disabilities continues. This study, focusing on such severe access gaps and inequalities, analyzes Learning Ally and Bookshare in the US, the Royal National Institute of Blind People (RNIB) in the UK, Bibliothèque Numérique Francophone Accessible (BNFA) in France, and SAPIE in Japan, which are considered private organizations leading library services for the disabled in major developed countries. And based on the derived implications and the Marrakesh Treaty, a strategic plan was proposed to strengthen the services of the disabled in domestic libraries. It is urgent to enact the 'Act to Resolve Reading Barriers', amend the provisions related to the Copyright Act that restrict library services, strengthen the organizational capacity of the National Library for the Disabled, raise the service index for the disabled in library evaluation, and establish a library cooperation system centered on regional representative libraries and expand services, etc.

A Study on the Disabled' Use Behavior and Needs towards the Library Space (도서관 공간에 대한 장애인 이용행태 및 요구 분석)

  • Bae, Kyung-Jae
    • Journal of Korean Library and Information Science Society
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    • v.50 no.2
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    • pp.25-42
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    • 2019
  • This study identified the experiences that the disabled actually feel in the library space in the face of growing social demands for spatial functions in public libraries. This study also tried to determine the requirements for the space that disabled wanted. For the research, 15 subjects were selected for each of the five people who were blind, deaf, and handicapped with experience using the library and individual in-depth interviews were conducted for the research. The study found that the experience of the disabled in the library space differed by type of disability and generally more negative experiences were found than positive ones. Misperception about the disabled of library staff and the non-disabled were having a significant impact on the disabled's negative experience for library space. There were a wide variety of opinions on the requirements for library space and there were generally negative perceptions about the current level of library space for the Integrated library service space.

A Study of Document Creation and Management in Braille Libraries (점자도서관의 문서 생산과 관리에 관한 연구)

  • Seok, Jeong Eun
    • The Korean Journal of Archival Studies
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    • no.40
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    • pp.181-223
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    • 2014
  • This study aims to present a Braille Library document creation and management status, and to identify ways to improve. This research field surveys and interviews were conducted three institutions, the quality requirements of the ISO 15489 standards. As a result, the Braille Library document management improvement plan is as follows. First, the policy and regulatory maintenance is needed. Copy of the regulations on the creation and management, access rights and related document management policies should be developed. Second, the document creation process needs to be improved. Electronic approval system responsible for the creation of persons who are visually impaired, visually impaired people can read documents created during document creation, and introduced measures and braille labels on the files attached to will have to be prepared. Third, the document management process needs to be improved. Changes in the creation copy of the records, and preserved along with the preservation of the original and the copy to have the same period, appointed to manage one set of all copies of the authentic copy of the plan is also required. Finally, for document management system should be introduced. Systematic document management system that can be introduced is required. This system will be designed to be accessible to the visually impaired, the search.

An optimized deployment strategy of smart smoke sensors in a large space

  • Liu, Pingshan;Fang, Junli;Huang, Hongjun
    • KSII Transactions on Internet and Information Systems (TIIS)
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    • v.16 no.11
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    • pp.3544-3564
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    • 2022
  • With the development of the NB-IoT (Narrow band Internet of Things) and smart cities, coupled with the emergence of smart smoke sensors, new requirements and issues have been introduced to study on the deployment of sensors in large spaces. Previous research mainly focuses on the optimization of wireless sensors in some monitoring environments, including three-dimensional terrain or underwater space. There are relatively few studies on the optimization deployment problem of smart smoke sensors, and leaving large spaces with obstacles such as libraries out of consideration. This paper mainly studies the deployment issue of smart smoke sensors in large spaces by considering the fire probability of fire areas and the obstacles in a monitoring area. To cope with the problems of coverage blind areas and coverage redundancy when sensors are deployed randomly in large spaces, we proposed an optimized deployment strategy of smart smoke sensors based on the PSO (Particle Swarm Optimization) algorithm. The deployment problem is transformed into a multi-objective optimization problem with many constraints of fire probability and barriers, while minimizing the deployment cost and maximizing the coverage accuracy. In this regard, we describe the structure model in large space and a coverage model firstly, then a mathematical model containing two objective functions is established. Finally, a deployment strategy based on PSO algorithm is designed, and the performance of the deployment strategy is verified by a number of simulation experiments. The obtained experimental and numerical results demonstrates that our proposed strategy can obtain better performance than uniform deployment strategies in terms of all the objectives concerned, further demonstrates the effectiveness of our strategy. Additionally, the strategy we proposed also provides theoretical guidance and a practical basis for fire emergency management and other departments to better deploy smart smoke sensors in a large space.

Implementing Braille Display System Based on the IoT (사물인터넷 기반의 점자 표출 시스템 구현)

  • Seung-Bin Park;Bong-Hyun Kim
    • Journal of Internet of Things and Convergence
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    • v.9 no.6
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    • pp.29-35
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    • 2023
  • Braille can be said to be an essential means used for the visually impaired to communicate or acquire information on visual materials in their lives. However, the rate of interpretation of braille among the visually impaired is insignificant at 5%. As a result, libraries for the visually impaired produce various types of materials that can obtain various information for the visually impaired and also have assistive technology equipment to interpret them. However, the publication rate of Braille books is too low to purchase and interpret Braille books. In addition, the Braille interpretation rate is too low, and the purchase of assistive technology devices is too expensive and slow. Therefore, in this paper, we implemented a system that displays Braille using Arduino to help visually impaired people in addition to the existing methods they use to obtain information. For Braille display, Korean data is transmitted from Python through serial communication between Python and Arduino, and Arduino, which receives the data, compares the Korean data with the data in the array in the program and retrieves the Braille values of the Korean data. Here, the Braille value was expressed by controlling the servo motor perpendicular or horizontal to the body using white and black circles based on the Braille list.