Dear all,
Currently the braille facility at the University of Sheffield is
situated in the library. Library personnel will provide a braille
service if necessary however they do not have a dedicated member of
staff responsible for the service. The majority of braille material
is provided to students by the Sheffield College Visual Impairment
Service with whom we have a contract, funded partly by us and partly
via the Disabled Sudents' Allowances. This has not been a problem
because all students so far have been able to use the VIS support,
however from the next academic year students joining us - both Erasmus and
post-graduate - will not have the same access to the VIS support
because of the funding method. The result of this is that there will
be a far greater demand of the in-house facility. However this has
conincided with the fact that the library have stated that the
brailler should not be seen as a library service because of the
limitations of their resources, and because the nature of demand for
its use does not really fit with their general service remit. They
have stated that they are open to the idea of transferring the
machine to some other location.
I know something about braille provision and I have some ideas about
what is happening at other establishments, but bearing in mind we need
to do something fairly quickly here I would be grateful if you out
there could share your experience with me.. ...
1. what is the most useful location for the service
2. how do we decide about staffing the provision
3. do you charge students/departments for the use of the facility
4. is there some best practice that I could quickly present to my
establishment
Many thanks in advance,
Marie Norris.
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