LibGuides: Reading Challenge: Accessibility & Reading

Accessbility & Reading

What is accessibility?

Accessibility is the principle that all users, regardless of ability, can use and interact with information, items, services, and environments.

Why is accessibility important?

To ensure inclusiveness of all people, allowing greater independence and access. Libraries are for everyone, and we want everyone to be able to enjoy reading.

What disabilities can impact reading?

Visual impairments: Seeing text
Dexterity or strength: Holding a book or e-reader, turning pages
Learning: Comprehending text

How can we make reading accessible?

Ebooks can be adjusted to have larger text sizes or different fonts. They can also be viewed on devices that are easier to hold.
Audiobooks can help readers better comprehend the text. They can also help visually impaired readers to access books.

Recommended Books

The following books are recommended by the Student Accessibility Services office as representations of various disabilities, both of authors and characters. Several are available in multiple formats. If you need a format that is not available, please contact the library and we will help you find the book in the format you need.

The Curious Incident of the Dog in the Night-Time by Mark Haddon
Call Number: PZ7 H1165 Cu 2003

ISBN: 9781400032716

Publication Date: 2004-05-18

Christopher John Francis Boone knows all the countries of the world and their capitals and every prime number up to 7,057. He relates well to animals but has no understanding of human emotions. He cannot stand to be touched. And he detests the color yellow.

This improbable story of Christopher's quest to investigate the suspicious death of a neighborhood dog makes for one of the most captivating, unusual, and widely heralded novels in recent years.

Representation: Austism spectrum disorder
Availability: Physical book, ebook
Wonder by R. J. Palacio
Call Number: Juvenile Collection; PZ7.P17526 Wo 2012

ISBN: 9780375869020

Publication Date: 2012-02-14

I won't describe what I look like. Whatever you're thinking, it's probably worse.

August Pullman was born with a facial difference that, up until now, has prevented him from going to a mainstream school. Starting 5th grade at Beecher Prep, he wants nothing more than to be treated as an ordinary kid--but his new classmates can't get past Auggie's extraordinary face. Beginning from Auggie's point of view and expanding to include his classmates, his sister, her boyfriend, and others, the perspectives converge to form a portrait of one community's struggle with empathy, compassion, and acceptance. In a world where bullying among young people is an epidemic, this is a refreshing new narrative full of heart and hope.

Representation: Craniofacial deformity
Availability: Physical book, ebook
The Midnight Library by Matt Haig
Call Number: Available on Libby

ISBN: 9780525559498

Publication Date: 2023-05-09

Somewhere out beyond the edge of the universe there is a library that contains an infinite number of books, each one the story of another reality. One tells the story of your life as it is, along with another book for the other life you could have lived if you had made a different choice at any point in your life. While we all wonder how our lives might have been, what if you had the chance to go to the library and see for yourself? Would any of these other lives truly be better?

In The Midnight Library, Matt Haig's enchanting blockbuster novel, Nora Seed finds herself faced with this decision. Faced with the possibility of changing her life for a new one, following a different career, undoing old breakups, realizing her dreams of becoming a glaciologist; she must search within herself as she travels through the Midnight Library to decide what is truly fulfilling in life, and what makes it worth living in the first place.

Representation: Depression
Availability: Ebook, audiobook