Working Group on Disabled and Special Needs Support Meeting Notes

Notes from the meeting held at SOAS.

Present: Anne Poulson (SOAS) (Chair), Tim Cullen (University of Greenwich), Eileen Nazha (Queen Mary), Judith Preece (UEL), Margaret Robinson (Kings) , Margaret Smyth (University of Kent)

1. Apologies

David Archer (LSHTM), Liz Kerr, Jo Knight (British Library), Colin Smith (University of Surrey), Nikki Trigg (University of Westminster), Mark Walton (British Library)

2. Minutes of last meeting and matters arising

The minutes of the last meeting were accepted as accurate.

Matters arising:

• 2.2. Anne would canvass members of the M25 Steering Group on the Exchange of Experience Seminar. Discussed a suitable date in June again, though we would need to avoid the Sconul meeting which was being held then. Action AP
• 3. Eileen to email contacts to inform them about the Exchange of Experience Seminar and ask them if they wanted to be involved. Action EN
• 4. Anne reported that the new website was now up and running. David had been looking at it with John Gilby. The minutes of our meetings were not up to date – Eileen to send copies of past minutes to David to ensure they were added. Action EN
• 5. Access policies – Liz had undertaken to form a sub-group to look at disability policy templates in M25 institutions, including such things as facilities offered, loan policies, fines, access to Assistive Technology etc. Tim Cullen and Margaret Robinson volunteered to join her in this. Eileen to email Liz and ask her to convene a meeting of the sub-group. Action EN, LK
• 6. New Publications – decided to remove this as a separate agenda item. Any publications of note could be discussed elsewhere on the agenda.

3. Training Events

Anne had had no further contact with Bulgaria since her visit there. We could fund them to come here if it were thought a good idea to have representatives at the Exchange of Experience Seminar.
CPD25 was holding an event on the Disability Law update on 4th April. Anne would email Jean Yeoh to ask her if she wanted input to this. Action AP

Suggestions for topics to be covered in the Exchange of Experience Seminar:

• Mental health
• Assistive technology – is it better to integrate it with other library technology, or keep it in separate rooms? Possibly approach London Met for a display of assistive technology? Ask students to demonstrate? Margaret was going to visit Kingston University to look at their facilities and will report back. She was also going to an RNIB course. Action MR

4. Website management and content

It was noted that David was shortly going to be on leave for two months so we would have to cover liaison with John Gilby. Action EN

5. Publicising the WG

Methods we were pursuing included the website, which we should make sure is kept up to date, the e-bulletin with articles on our activities, e-mail lists.

6. AOB

There was no other business.

7. Date of Next Meeting

6th April 2.00 at Kings.

EN 14 March 2006