Northeast Alabama Community College (NACC) has been selected as one of 310 libraries to participate in round two of Libraries Transforming Communities: Accessible Small and Rural Communities, an American Library Association (ALA) initiative that provides community engagement and accessibility resources to small and rural libraries to help them better serve people with disabilities.

The competitive award comes with a $10,000 grant that will help the library license audiobooks and eBooks for NACC students, personnel, and community members who have difficulty reading print materials due to blindness, vision loss, or dyslexia. This audience was chosen because the NACC Learning Resources Center (LRC) already has an established platform that successfully addresses these accessibility issues in place. The OverDrive Libby app works with screen readers, provides a dyslexic font, reduces color variation, reduces text variation, and displays text without italics, caps, and a variety of font.

“We are so honored to have been chosen for this amazing opportunity,” said Dr. Julia Everett, Head Librarian. “Assistive technologies can be vital in the daily lives of people with disabilities.”

This summer, LRC staff will host an online conversation regarding materials for patrons who are blind, have experienced vision loss, or are dyslexic. If you would like to participate in the conversation, please email Dr. Julia Everett at everettj@nacc.edu.

Since 2014, ALA’s Libraries Transforming Communities initiative has re-imagined the role libraries play in supporting communities. Libraries of all types have utilized free dialogue and deliberation training and resources to lead community and campus forums; take part in anti-violence activities; provide a space for residents to come together and discuss challenging topics; and have productive conversations with civic leaders, library trustees and staff.

“Libraries Transforming Communities: Accessible Small and Rural Communities is an initiative of the American Library Association (ALA) in collaboration with the Association for Rural and Small Libraries (ARSL).”