Ulverscroft and the IFLA Libraries Serving Persons with Print Disabilities Section: Best Practice Awards

The Ulverscroft Foundation and the IFLA Libraries Serving Persons with Print Disabilities Section are pleased to announce the outcome of the bids for funding from the 2010 program. Ulverscroft Foundation has made 20,000 Pounds GB available for individual and organization awards to assist the development of library services for print disabled people worldwide and to foster cooperation between library services serving these persons. Individual awards have been offered to:

Mark Freeman, Libraries Manager, South Tyneside Library Service and Chair of Share The Vision, UK

Mark as a public libraries manager wishes to build on existing relations between the libraries in the North East of England and the Eastern Cape of South Africa. Mark has been awarded 2,150 Pounds GB to visit the Associate Member of the DAISY Consortium, South African Library for the Blind and, especially, their Mini Libs service in local communities.

Kathy Teague and Wendy Taylor, Librarians, RNIB National Library Service, UK

Kathy and Wendy are responsible for coordinating the Cataloguing Working Group of the IFLA LPD’s Global Accessible Library Project and are involved in the acquisition of a new library management system by RNIB NLS. They wish to visit the Celia Library in Helsinki, Finland to study their implementation of the new FRBR bibliographic model [Functional Requirements for Bibliographic Records] which permits the assigning of relationships between different accessible formats of the same work. Celia belongs to the Finnish DAISY Consortium and is the first specialist library in this field to implement this model. Their visit has clear potential to enhance the DAISY Consortium member RNIB’s services and worldwide developments. Ulverscroft has offered 2,700 to fund this visit.

Yasmine Youssef, Librarian at the Taha Hussein Library for the Blind and Print Disabled at the Bibliotheca Alexandrina, Egypt.

Yasmine is the library’s specialist in the production of DAISY books and wishes to visit DAISY South Africa to provide expert assistance in their development of DAISY production and to understand the challenges posed by accommodating 11 official languages. This opportunity will enhance her ability to develop services at the Bibliotheca Alexandrina (Associate Member of the DAISY Consortium) and to assist developments in other Arabic speaking countries. Yasmine has been awarded 2,550 Pounds GB to undertake this visit.

More information and the full list of award recipients can be found on the Ulverscroft Foundation website.