Wired West vol. 1, no. 3 - Special Libraries Offer Specialized Services

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Library Profile

Special Libraries Offer Specialized Services

Special libraries are unique with respects to whom they serve and the type of collections they have. Each special library meets the needs of their clientele in ways that are unique to that library. The Resource Centre for Saskatchewan Education and Saskatchewan Post-secondary Education and Skills Training is a special library that not only provides research and informational services to the staff of two governmental departments, but it also offers unique services to a clientele outside of government.

The Resource Centre provides services to visually impaired students in Saskatchewan and the educators who work with those students. To provide this service, the Resource Centre has a professional collection for educators (print materials, videos and electronic databases), and an alternate format collection of braille, large print, audio tapes and kits for the students. The collection consists of:

resources recommended for use in the schools by Saskatchewan Education in braille, large print and audio tape
alternate format resources for recreational reading
kits to assist the students in learning braille
resources for braillists
tools for assessing levels of vision
professional materials for educators to assist them in providing quality education and instruction to visually impaired students

Every year, the Resource Centre is involved with the Insight Conference, an annual conference for parents of visually impaired children, and for the educators who work with those children. This year the conference was held from March 26th to March 27th in Saskatoon, and the Resource Centre was one of the exhibitors. The Resource Centre’s display included alternate format materials from the collection which were loaned to students. Also included in the display, for loan to educators, were professional materials on such topics as adapting the curricula to meet the needs of visually impaired students; instructional options for teaching visually impaired students; dealing with multi-handicapped visually impaired students; teaching orientation and mobility skills; teaching daily living skills; teaching braille literacy etc.

The Resource Centre gave demonstrations on accessing, searching and ordering from the Resource Centre’s web catalogues:

alternate format resources http://www.sasked.gov.sk.ca/catalog/headpage.html
professional materials http://www.sasked.gov.sk.ca/resources/lib4_hom.html

The Resource Centre has been associated with the Insight Conference since its inception in 1989. When the conference is held in Regina in alternate years, Resource Centre staff are on the conference planning committee.

The Insight Conference is a prime opportunity for Resource Centre staff to inform the conference participants about the collection and the services provided by the Resource Centre. Not only do we let participants know that they can order what is in the collection, but educators can also request titles to be originally produced in braille, large print or audio tape.

Being involved with the Insight Conference allows Resource Centre staff to meet the students, parents and educators; to learn more about visual impairments and the technology currently used to assist the visually impaired. We’re a specialized library offering a specialized service.

NOTE: At the conference, my colleague had a spare moment to surf the NET and found a web site that translates text into braille http://www.access2020.com/ Take a visit!

Charlene Kramer
Head Librarian, Saskatchewan Education
Saskatchewan Post-secondary Education and Skills Training
E-mail kramer@sasked.gov.sk.ca