Understanding the issues: Demographics

There are nearly 2 million people in this country with impaired vision.

  • More than 1 million have serious sight loss.
  • 66% of those eligible for registration as blind or partially sighted are not registered.
  • 1 in 12 people over 60 years of age and 1 in 5 people over 75 are registered.
  • At last census – marked increase in number of older people.
  • For the first time more over 65s than under 16s.
  • 75% of people who are registered as blind or partially sighted are unemployed.

What do we know about them?

  • Something over 90% of people registered as blind have some residual sight
  • Of the people who have significant sight loss, only a very tiny proportion (around 12,000) read Braille
  • By far the majority rely on audio materials, reading machines, CCTV and large print
  • Majority of people with visual impairment in this country are 60 or over
  • Substantial minority are considerably younger
  • People who lose their sight later in life are less likely to become fluent Braille readers than those who learn to read Braille as children
  • Newly visually impaired people have to adjust not only to the loss of their sight, but possibly also to the loss of many other things such as independence, status and their job
  • To then have to adjust to the loss or curtailment of their leisure activities, one of which may be reading, is an added blow

What can we do as members of the Library profession?

  • Our first job is to convince them that they do not have to stop reading, they just have to do it in a different way
  • It’s very easy to think that by Brailling a few booklists you have addressed access problems when:
  • that would only reach a very tiny proportion of the visually impaired population and
  • inclusion should be something that is thought for all visually impaired readers all the time

Public Libraries and the DDA

Why the DDA matters:

Why does it matter if visually impaired people don’t use public libraries?

When libraries were really just big warehouses for books, it didn't matter so much. Now that many libraries have become the hub of their local community, it matters a great deal:

It matters that visually impaired people have to go somewhere else for their books:

  • that they miss out on all the promotional activities because the publicity material is not accessible to them
  • that they don’t see all the notices on the board (even if they are accessible) because they don’t know the board is there, so they don’t know what else is going on
  • that they don’t join the reading groups because they don’t know about them
  • most of all that they don’t go to the library because to their mind, there’s nothing there for them.

Misunderstanding of visually impaired clientele:

Part and parcel of all the ‘missing out’ above is a misunderstanding or lack of confidence on the part of some public library staff about the needs of visually impaired readers. Often there is an assumption that visually impaired people are completely blind and therefore oblivious to all visual stimuli

  • that they read only Braille and occasionally use audio tapes
  • that the average visually impaired person is a little old lady who only wants to read Catherine Cookson books

Happily this image is gradually changing, so is the image of all pensioners, think of the Poll tax protesters!

Other groups of visually impaired people who need services:

Men – do they want Catherine Cookson?

Children

  • they still have the same expectations and hopes as their sighted friends
  • most are educated in mainstream schools along with their sighted peers
  • other than in issues of health and safety and
  • other than in providing different formats
  • visually impaired children should be treated no differently from any others

DDA provides the opportunity to address all these issues:To look at the reading needs of vips

What are these reading needs?

  • They are exactly the same as those of sighted people
  • For visually impaired people the reading material just needs to be provided in a different format
  • All the time, we mistake the person for the product
  • We define the reader by his or her preferred format rather than simply looking at him or her as a member of the public who just happens to have reduced sight.