Snežana Jančić
Univerzitet u Nišu, Univerzitetska biblioteka „Nikola Tesla“, Niš
snezana.jancic@ni.ac.rs

doi: 10.19090/cit.2019.35.38-43
No. 35 (November 2019), p. 38-43

Introducing Services for Visually Impaired Persons
– Experience of the University Library "Nikola Tesla", Niš

Summary

Providing library and information services to persons with disabilities has always been an extremely important segment of work in libraries, and it is especially challenging nowadays, in the digital age. This paper describes the process of introducing services for blind and visually impaired users at the University Library Nikola Tesla in Niš, which improves their studying conditions. By joining the TEMPUS project entitled Equal Access for All: Strengthening the Social Dimension for a Stronger European Higher Education Area in 2013, during which the University Library was equipped with the assistive technology for visually impaired students of the Niš University (Braille printer, magnifying glass, computers and corresponding software), it started to deal with the needs of this category of users in an organized manner and developed specialized library and information services to meet their requirements. This goal was reached by analyzing their needs, gaining knowledge in the fi eld of legal regulations such as international and Serbian copyright laws and treaties, establishing cooperation with other institutions with experience in providing such services, composing necessary instruction manuals, and training of the library staff . Since then, the services for blind and visually impaired students, among which the most important one is producing specially-adapted books in accessible formats, which are hosted at the University Library local repository, have become a part of the standard library services.

Keywords:

visually impaired persons, specialized library and information services, assistive technology, adapted literature for the blind and visually impaired, accessible formats, University Library "Nikola Tesla", Niš

Submitted: 28th February 2019
Correction to the manuscript: 16th August 2019
Accepted for publication: 22nd August 2019

Introducing Services for Visually Impaired Persons – Experience of the University Library "Nikola Tesla", Niš by Snežana Jančić is licensed under a Creative Commons Attribution-NonCommercial-NoDerivatives 4.0 International License.

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