The anniversary of the ADA rolls around every year and I try to celebrate it to focus on highlighting access issues to the public that are everyday realities to those of us with disabilities. Here’s this year’s activities:

  • Demonstrated digital access to university committee representatives; once they experience good and not-so-good websites with a screen reader, it all makes sense.
  • Recommended book for library’s history offerings (because they had nothing in the area):

A Disability History of the United States (REVISIONING HISTORY #2)

by Kim E. Nielsen

  • Led a workshop for RCU bank employees  on being an access-able person
  • Organized and chaired panel on “Writing the Disability Experience” We had writers who live with ADHD, autism, brain injury, hearing loss and blindness. Over a hundred people attended.  
  • Calvin and I taped a segment on the ADA panel for the  channel 13 morning show. https://www.weau.com/2023/07/24/panelists-step-up-mic-celebrate-adas-anniversary/ Ellie, the interviewer, was  a friendly, bouncy gal who told  me  such things as: “Oh girlfriend, you’re doing great” after knowing me  five minutes. One of her amazing questions was: “How has being blind affected your life?” Another interviewee was one of the poets with a brain injury on the panel.  She got a similar question and she and I rolled our eyes together afterwards.  Now Ellie was smitten with Calvin, so he got some good video.  He didn’t have to worry about the quotes. After the panel, I went out to dinner with a couple friends to celebrate the event being DONE.
  • Advocated for public input for county budget to include a remote method for making  input via  an online survey.  We’ve done it before but it vanishes from people’s minds  to do this unless I remind them every year.
  • Complimented others doing Disability Pride kinds of things, like a great book reviewer on a list for users of the National Library Service    

Read three memoirs Leg, about a gay man with cerebral palsy, Lithium Jesus, a memoir of mania and The Future is Disabled, and a novel, Be Mine, about a son with ALS. The memoirs have way more about sex lives than mine did; that might be a generational thing. The novel was a good road trip novel with disability issues as a part of it that seemed authentic.  Always in search of the latest blindness memoir, I read Country of the Blind by Andrew Leland. He’s going blind and mixes memoir with research into the culture, organizations etc. of the world of blindness—well written!

I’m noticing more celebrations of Disability Pride month, including publishers and libraries having those top ten booklists that feed my addiction.  I’ve added More than a Glitch: Confronting Race, Gender, and Ability Bias in Tech by Meredith Broussard to my TBR list, so far; happily, it’s available from Bookshare. In addition to a lot of reading,  I wonder what I’ll do to celebrate next year. What about you?