Hi VIS 2021 (7-20 June 2021) – The diversity of reading
Hi VIS 2021 will take place between 7th–20th June, and this year we will be celebrating the diversity of reading.
Hi VIS (formerly Make A Noise in Libraries) fortnight seeks each year to highlight the wonderful world of accessible reading. Reading is something that can and does bring us together, regardless of what or how we read. Hi VIS fortnight provides an opportunity to raise the profile of accessible library services, collections, and activities, and to connect people with a vision or print impairment to them, to reading, and to fellow readers.
The availability of alternative formats and cultural engagement through libraries is critical to ensuring that people who are blind, or who have sight loss or anything that stops them from using standard print, can access, enjoy and share a diverse range of reading and experiences.
What can libraries do?
We would like, during Hi VIS Fortnight, for libraries across the UK to highlight and celebrate all that you do to help people with vision and/or print impairments to access and connect to the reading services and formats that best suit them, and to engage with reading and related activities.
Share the Vision are specifically hoping that libraries will:
- Promote accessible reading formats and services (their own and other organisations’); and related local activities;
- Organise linked events, ideally (but not necessarily) building on this year’s theme; and,
- Actively post on social media about these services, activities and events.
Available Resources
- As in previous years, to help libraries and librarians join in with Hi VIS 2021, Share the Vision have produced a range of digital promotional materials that are freely available for people to download. These have been designed to work on Twitter, Instagram, and Facebook.
- We will be using our Twitter account: @ReadingSight and the hashtag #HiVIS2021 to help spread the word and feature activities that are going on
- Alerts will also be sent out via the Reading Sight Jisc mailing list (formerly ‘Six Steps’ Jisc list) and Heads of Service will be made aware through Libraries Connected
Ideas for activities
- We appreciate that physical events may still be ‘offline’ in early June but perhaps you might be able to come up with online or socially distanced activity sessions – maybe poetry or storytelling or singing… something to help celebrate the diversity of formats and reading experiences
- Promote the accessible stock that you have – audio/talking books, Braille, tactile, e-book/audio/magazine collections etc. and highlight how people can access collections safely at present.
- Feature your accessible/online book groups; and/or if you have an ongoing Reading Friends project or similar initiative that is open to blind or partially sighted people, then shout about that too!
- Celebrate the accessible online/e-services and their accessible features that people might not be aware of
- Encourage local staff and/or volunteers to increase their awareness of your service’s provision and the wider, specialist provision that is available
- Make a link, if you haven’t already, to your local ‘sight loss’ or disability groups and partner organisations and highlight something they have going on during Hi VIS fortnight (especially if it involves reading!)
- Also, please give a shout out to the various accessible libraries, such as Calibre, Clearvision, Living Paintings, RNIB Library etc. that are there, providing valuable reading opportunities everyday (for free!)
Join in and engage with HiVIS 2021 via Twitter: @readingsight / #HiVIS2021