Congratulations to DCLA Member Christopher Corrigan (DCPL Adaptive Services Division) for his recent community service award from the
National Federation of the Blind's DC affiliate.
This award comes to Chris for his work revising and improving the DC Public Library Adaptive Services Division's adaptive technology training program.
Chris works extensively with visually impaired learners, teaching them how to use the screen reading software, Job Access With Speech (JAWS). Most of DCPL Adaptive Services Divisions' patrons, besides adjusting to the condition of their vision, in many cases have never before used a computer. Therefore, the challenge faced is teaching them computer concepts as well as adaptive technology. To meet this challenge, Chris created a one of a kind curriculum and training program for instructing visually impaired individuals in these concepts as well as the adaptive technology provided in the Division. This curriculum is available to the public at
www.asischool.org.
To promote the library as place, Chris host Game Nights once a month for blind and low-vision gamers, where a committed following of participants play Braille and large print games. In addition, he created an innovative Wikipedia Book Club, where blind participants create new Wikipedia articles for books, again using the screen reading software JAWS. For the past two summers, Chris coordinated a computer camp for visually impaired teens.
Do you have an accomplishment or announcement you would like to share with the DC library community? If so,
contact the DCLA Board.
