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Community-University Engagement

Public Libraries and Accessibility: Community Action for Inclusive Spaces 

In 2022, the Government of British Columbia (BC) enacted its commitment to the Accessible British Columbia Act (ABCA) (assented June 17, 2021), in which libraries must have responded to regulations in 2023 by striking a committee and establishing an accessibility plan. This community-led partnership between Okanagan Regional Library (ORL) and the Collaborative + Experimental Ethnography Lab (CE2 Lab) at UBC, Okanagan (UBCO) is aimed at using qualitative insights from anthropology to advance the ORL’s capacity to address and respond to accessibility mandates and meet the goals of their accessibility plan. Collaboratively we produced BluePrint: An Applied Approach to Accessibility as an open access resources that provides guidelines for best practices about what it means to create and support accessible libraries by evaluating their current physical spaces, services, and programs.

Collaborators

Fiona P. McDonald, CE2 Lab Director, Assistant Professor, Department of Community, Culture and Global Studies, Faculty of Arts and Social Sciences (2023-present)

Tara Thompson, Community Engagement Coordinator, Okanagan Regional Library

Elena Plotnikoff, Research Assistant, Okanagan Regional Library (2025-present)

Mark Reinelt, Director of Public Services, Okanagan Regional Library (2024-present)

Christine McPhee, Former Director of Public Services, Okanagan Regional Library (2023-2024)

FUNDED BY

UBC Community-University Engagement Support Fund, CE2 Lab, and Okanagan Regional Library