University don makes case for visually impaired over access to library use
Bankole Taiwo, Abeokuta
A Professor of Library and Information Science, Adeniran Abimbola Adetoro has blamed the government for paying lip service to the inclusion of Persons with Visual Impairment in the use of Library and Information technology.
The University don disclosed this while delivering the 14th Inaugural lecture of the Tai Solarin University of Education, Ijagun, Ogun State, (TASUED) with the theme “Information Use Phenomenon: Unlocking Its Techno-Psychological Nexuses And Dilemma Of The Excluded.”
Prof. Adetoro explained that Persons with Visual Impairment (PVI) in Nigeria are objects of deliberate and inadvertent educational and occupational discrimination, adding that most of these people are beggars on the highways while the few that are educated are at the mercy of charity organisations and philanthropists who provide them with information materials.
“Libraries for the visually impaired in Nigeria are faced with problems of meeting the high demand for information materials in alternative formats,” he noted.
The lecturer urged the government to as a matter of urgency invest and encourage the private sector to make internet connectivity accessible and affordable to the citizens of the Country.
Adetoro also clamoured for the establishment of centres whose major function would be to provide library and information materials that people with visual impairment can use to bridge the access gap to information resources and to help address the need for information meant for leisure and academic reasons.
He called for the removal of practices, policies, and procedures that are capable of rendering the visually impaired not able to use information services.
Adetoro enjoined librarians to undergo advanced training such that, they can attend to the request of PVI in a useful format in the needed quantities.
“Libraries, including NGOs for the visually impaired should promote, publicise services and advocate on behalf of their patrons, informing the visually impaired community and any other interest groups,” he further added.
To redress the lopsidedness, the inaugural lecturer, appealed to governments and other stakeholders on the need to re-strategise and implement a new course of actions that would lead to investment in technologies for information access and collaboration with the global blindness community actors.
As part of his recommendations, he solicited investment in technology use training for PVIs, building skills and not forgetting subsidising the delivery of assistive technologies while making it cheap.
The well-attended event, had in attendance the Vice-Chancellor, Prof Oluwole Banjo who also doubled as the Chairman of the occasion.
Others were the Deputy Vice Chancellor, Prof Olarenwaju Adeogun, the University Registrar, Mr. Dapo Oke, the Bursar, Mr. Kabiru Ogunneye, and the University Librarian, Mrs. Sola Oyesiku among others
