Networked library access and services delivery for the blind and visually impaired university students: evidence from the UAE
| Date | 19 August 2019 |
| Published date | 19 August 2019 |
| DOI | https://doi.org/10.1108/IDD-07-2017-0058 |
| Pages | 117-124 |
| Author | Alia Al-Harrasi,Ahmed Taha |
| Subject Matter | Library & information science,Library & information services,Lending,Document delivery,Collection building & management,Stock revision,Consortia |
Networked library access and services delivery
for the blind and visually impaired university
students: evidence from the UAE
Alia Al-Harrasi
Khalifa University of Science Technology and Research, Abu Dhabi, United Arab Emirates, and
Ahmed Taha
United Arab Emirates University, Al Ain, United Arab Emirates
Abstract
Purpose –The study aims to discuss the special needs-centric information delivery as a new genre of the academic library services. It also
sheds light on the assistive technology used to help blind or visually impaired (BVI) students to access the available digital contents and use
online services conveniently. A particular emphasis placed on gaining some insights into BVIs’perceptions towards the orientation and
assistance offered by the access service librarians, as well as any experience in using assistive educational technology for reading and
information access.
Design/methodology/approach –The authors used semi-structured interview survey to gather the necessary data from 35 BVI university students
drawn from the Special Needs Services (SNS) Unit at the UAE University. The interview was concerned with use of library e-resources and online
services for doing their assignments, easy-to-use facilities to access the e-resources and main challenges facing them in communicating with the
librarians.
Findings –The findings revealed that the BVI students considered that the university library does not answer their needs for getting access to digital
content and using online services adequately.
Practical implications –The Main Library should cooperate closely with the SNS Unit to get the most benefits from their experience in the BVI-
devoted services to develop an efficient library information discovery and delivery to this student group.
Originality/value –There is scarcity of scholarly studies on the pedagogical and information acquisition challenges facing the BVI university
students in the UAE higher education. This is the first research study that tackles the experience of the BVI students in using the academic library.
Keywords UAE University, E-resources discovery and retrieval, Blind and visually impaired students, e-Document delivery, IFLA guidelines,
Library online access
Paper type Research paper
1. Introduction
The paramount product of the ICT revolution was the
internet as a dominant driver for acquiring and spreading
myriad information within cyberspace in different domains.
Therefore, we say thank you to the internet and related
network technologies for facilitating the emergence of the
knowledge-driving society. Moreover, the overwhelming
advent of the web-based applications into various
educational settings has revolutionised the way of the course
design and online delivery significantly and empowered
academic libraries to make access to academic information
quite easily to the students. Therefore, the academic
networked libraries could help their users in using
information in a knowledge base (Majinge and Mutula,
2018).
Such tangible changes in the learning paradigm have set
up new roles for the academic libraries to be in-charge of
consultation and dissemination of academic and research
information to various groups of the university community.
On the other hand, the assistive tools that devoted to helping
the blind or visually impaired (BVIs) have witnessed
marvellous advancements that utilised the Web-based
application to increase the opportunities to BVI students
regarding an easier access to digital contents through such
facilities as the touchscreen technology and Braille-based
reading material, and talk e-books (Yang et al., 2012;Tom
et al., 2018).
One of the five laws of the library, Ranganathan (1931)
indicated that “the library is a growing and responsive living
organism”. Accordingly, the modification initiative of user
The current issue and full text archive of this journal is available on
Emerald Insight at: www.emeraldinsight.com/2398-6247.htm
Information Discovery and Delivery
47/3 (2019) 117–124
© Emerald Publishing Limited [ISSN 2398-6247]
[DOI 10.1108/IDD-07-2017-0058]
Writing this paper has had a tremendous amount of cooperation from
colleagues. We have highly appreciated the fruitful cooperation of the
thirty-five anonymous BVI university students. Our sincere thanks are
extended to instructors and IT technicians of the SNS Unit at the UAEU.
Received 30 July 2017
Revised 20 August 2018
20 December 2018
Accepted 20 December 2018
117
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