July is Disability Pride Month! While other pride flags are very popular, you might not have seen, or recognized, the Disability Pride flag.
It is a flag with 5 diagonal stripes to represent “cutting across barriers that disabled people face,” with a charcoal black background.
Each stripe represents a type of disability.
Red represents physical disabilities like mobility impairments, limb differences, and chronic pain.
Gold (or yellow) is for Neurodivergence and cognitive/intellectual disabilities like autism, ADHD, and down syndrome.
White is for invisible and undiagnosed disabilities like chronic illness and autoimmune conditions.
Blue represents psychiatric and mental health disabilities such as depression, bipolar, and PTSD.
Green is for sensory disabilities, which include blindness, deafness, and sensory processing disorders.
Lastly, the charcoal background represents mourning for those lost to abuse, eugenics, and systemic neglect.
The Disability community has had a rough past and continues to fight for certain rights. I encourage you to read more here and here.
Now that you know what kinds of disabilities there are, we can talk about what the library makes accessible for disabled patrons!
There’s the things that might seem obvious, including the Large Print section, audiobooks, and donated reading glasses for those who have impaired vision, but there’s so much more!
Our website has an accessibility feature as well! If you click the outstretched person icon in the blue circle (in the bottom left of the JCLS homepage) you can do all sorts of things! It lets you pause animations (for those whose eyes have movement sensitivity), change the saturation of an image, (for our patrons with color blindness) and even change the text to a special font that is dyslexic friendly!
My personal favorite is that many of our branches have wheelchair chargers in case someone’s mobility device is running low on battery. To find one near you, you can use this map. These have helped me more than once in a pinch.
Do you know about At Home Services? If a patron cannot physically pick up items from the library because of a disability, we have a system that can deliver books right to their door. They also provide book stands, magnifying glasses, and take-and-make programs. Read more about what they do in our previous blog post here. You can also follow this link to apply!
Jackson County Library Services does a lot for our disabled patrons and staff, and it could just help you, too!
Most people will become disabled at some point in their life, even if it’s temporary due to something like a broken leg or surgery. But even if you’re not disabled, the “curb cut effect” reminds us that things designed for the disabled help everyone. The term was coined when curb cuts became regulation for wheelchairs and helped those without disabilities, including people with strollers, rolling luggage, and deliveries. You can read more about it here.
Want to learn more about disability and its history? Check out my JCLS reading list.