Accessibility & Reading

With my reading revival this past year I have also been meditating on accessibility to reading. There are a few different ways I think about accessibility and reading and I wanted to start a conversation and thinking about how we think about reading and how we access reading material.

the first way I think about accessibility and reading is perhaps the one we think of first and as the most "obvious" because of our current social conversations of accessibility. That is how well can people who are differently-abled able to access books. I was at the library last summer and while I was browsing I wondered about why there isn't a section of brail books in regular local libraries? I know that there is a library of brail books in Seattle but what if you don't live near Seattle and cannot access that library? In order to read books do you have to purchase a book in brail? What is the cost of brail books? These were what I have wondered. Mainly thinking about how can we make books more accessible in brail to local communities.

The other side of accessibility and disability/differently-abled that I have been meditating on relates to my own sister. She cannot read herself but she loves books and in fact sleeps with a copy of A Little Princess. She knows that we love Harry Potter and she wants to feel included in having read the books. Now with audiobooks, she listens to books every day. She will talk to me about what she listened to in Harry Potter and will actually re-listen to her favorite books even her favorite parts. It amazed me how much more accessible storytelling became to her now with audiobooks.

The second aspect of accessibility that might be less obvious to us is just thinking about how people access books. I remember growing up when our local library did a Bookmobile that would come to our neighborhood on a bus and my sisters and I could walk to it. It was an important part of my development as a reader growing up. Sadly that program went away and I worry that without it people who live in more rural areas or do not live close to a local library will not have easy access to library books. I also think about how accessible bookstores are both in location and pricing. I certainly do not wish for writers to not earn a living or to have quality publishing but owning books and growing up with books in the house was important to me and I want others to have access to it.

What do you think about accessibility and reading? Do you have any observations?