Special Needs and Inclusive Library Services (SNAILS)

Come to the joint NWYS/CLASS meeting on Monday, November 9 and learn from librarian and certified ASL interpreter Kathy MacMillan as she provides tips on serving hearing impaired patrons in our libraries and basic conversational signs for a library setting. Kathy MacMillan is co-author of Little Hands & Big Hands: Children and Adults Signing Together , a professional resource for librarians, teachers, and educators that provides strategies for serving deaf and hard of hearing children combining American Sign Language and early literacy activities. 9:30 am—10:15 am NWYS & CLASS Business Meeting (NWYS and CLASS members) 10:15 am—10:30 am Break 10:45 am—11:45 am Serving Hearing Impaired Patrons 12:00 pm—1:00 pm Lunch* 1:00 pm—1:30 pm Tour of LaGrange Public Library Program Cost: Free for NWYS/CLASS Members and $10 for non-members *Lunch: $10; box lunch choices are: (specify selection in RSVP): Chicken Pesto, Tomato Mozzarella (vegetarian), Turkey swiss, Ham ...

Today's guest blog post was written by Paula Shapiro.  Paula is currently a Youth Services Librarian at the Deerfield Public Library in Deerfield, Illinois.  Thank you, Paula, for making this fantastic contribution to the SNAILS community! I always have loved working with tweens. I think they are interesting, funny, insightful and often trying to find a way to fit in.   With that said, as most of us can attest, it can be tough to be a tween! There is not a lot of programming out there for tweens with special needs and I believe that this type of programming is important and beneficial to kids of all abilities. With the help of our wonderful teen librarian, Nina Michael, we started to plan our first program: Board Game and Pizza Night For Tweens of All Abilities.     The vision was to have it be a buddy-type program where we paired up neuro-typical tweens with tweens with special needs.  Here is the   visual schedule (from Boardmaker ) that I ...

The Deerfield Public Library hosted the August SNAILS meeting at their redesigned library. Tamara Kaldor from Chicago Play Pro was the featured guest speaker who shared information about using apps with children with disabilities. We also welcomed Paula Shapiro, Youth Services Librarian at the Deerfield Public Library , who shared what her library has done to serve children and tweens with special needs. Below is a recap of the meeting, but be sure to stay tuned for a forthcoming blog post highlighting in more detail Paula's innovative buddy program for tweens of all abilities. Using Apps with Children with Special Needs Tamara is a developmental therapist and advocate for people with disabilities at Chicago Play Pro. Her primary focus is working with children with special needs, but for the last several years, she has worked with librarians to help train and promote accessibility and inclusion in public libraries. As she explained during her presentation, "When I think ab...

Vernon Hills Public Library hosted our spring meeting on Wednesday, April 23, 2014 in their beautifully redesigned library. We covered a lot of ground in a few short hours, so if you weren't able to attend, please take some time to soak in this recap. Leap into Literacy Rita Angelini, founder of Leap into Literacy, shared the history and mission of her organization as well as the process of creating an adaptive book by translating the text into Boardmaker ™  symbols, laminating the pages, and adding page fluffers. About a dozen suburban libraries have already received a donation of these books, and Rita is working with volunteers and SNAILS to provide them to many more libraries. To see which libraries already carry Rita's books, as well as the books' titles, visit the new Leap into Literacy  website .  After Rita's presentation, a conversation ensued about the extra time it takes for Technical Services to catalog and process adaptive books. Due to the books...