New Strategic Partnership
On 8 June 2020, Share The Vision and The Ulverscroft Foundation announced a new and exciting 3 year strategic partnership, with the aim to highlight and develop accessible library services – Great news to coincide with #HiVIS2020, for all visually-impaired library users, and those working in the sector.
The two organisations have many shared areas of interest and priority, and the partnership will concentrate efforts and activity around three core aims; focused on increasing and improving understanding, awareness and accessibility. Specifically:
- To increase library staff understanding of the needs of people who are blind or have a vision-impairment, and the challenges they face in accessing library services.
- To improve awareness amongst blind and vision-impaired people about the range of library services on offer; and,
- To support the development and accessibility of these services and increase their take-up.
There is a mutually-agreed and co-funded programme of activity to be undertaken across the next three years, and there should be plenty of opportunities for staff and users to get involved and get reading!
We are undoubtedly living and working in extraordinary times, with the COVID-19 pandemic; and this is clearly challenging the operation of library services. Emerging evidence suggests that blind or visually-impaired people may find it particularly hard to manage during the crisis, and that targeted services/charities may struggle in light of the impact of the virus. With this in mind, the strategic partnership comes at an important and critical time.
More details will be shared in due course…