Program Actions

ACTION 1: Extension of the library services of the University of Macedonia to the visually impaired users

a.Installment of one P/C Workstation with adaptive equipment at UOM Library

Phases of Implementation: market research - equipment purchase - workstation installment - evaluation by the users

b. Supporting Activities - Acquaintance of the library staff with the new services

Three brief introductory seminars about how to deal with the visually impaired people/ library users and how to support them physically

c. Publicity activities for the introduction and promotion of the new services to be established in the Library of the University of Macedonia. The campaign will be addressed to the visually impaired population, any relevant organizations in Thessaloniki, to the Municipal Authorities and other bodies

d. Sensibilisation of the public, the visually impaired people -especially the students and the potential ones- on the solutions that the new technologies provide to these users today to access the Information Society and the Library services particularly.

a. Preliminary Study for the extension of the Library Services of the University of Cyprus to provide the equal opportunity to the blind and/or visually impaired users to access the library catalogue, the material and the modern ICT tools. The responsible for this task will use the recent experience of the University of Macedonia and the Feasibility Study (Deliverable 7.2.) produced by TESTLAB project.

b. Installment of one (1) P/C Workstation with adaptive equipment at the Library of the University of Cyprus, equipped as above

(Phases of Implementation: market research - equipment purchase - workstation installment - evaluation by the users)

ACTION 3: Production of the Training Package «Train the trainers» for the librarians to train the visually impaired users on accessing the modern ICT tools
* (to be issued in the Greek and English languages)

This training package is addressed to the librarians who will be responsible for the reception, the training and the assistance provided to the visually impaired users of the Library. The training method consists of a handbook for the support of the librarians and of a number of seminars. The seminars are planned as following:

* 4 days seminar to be held in Graz: Assistance to the visually impaired users of the library, acquaintance with the adaptive equipment

* 4 days seminar to be held in Linz: How to train the users on using of the adaptive equipment

* 5 days training course in Thessaloniki: ICT tools through the adaptive equipment for visually impaired users

The seminars will result to the production of a hand book as training pattern for other librarians which should be evaluated by the «trainers/trainees» at each stage of the training procedure.

ACTION 4: Production of a Training Package «Train the visually impaired Users» users to access the modern ICT tools of an Academic Library; production in the Greek and English languages. In parallel a training package for the visually impaired library users will be produced in order to make them familiar to the use of the tools of a modern academic library: the Library catalogue, the databases ( CD-ROM ), the Internet, and of course the special adaptive equipment which is the media to access the above

This training package will be consist of a short training course. The training material for this course should be produced in a modern Text Mark-up: LaTeX and/or HTML. From this format they could automatically or semi-automatically transcribed into Braille, accessed via speech output or produce Discs (pure text). The available material for the users will be in: Hypertext documents, Braille documents, Discs, Largeprint. These materials will be developed further to be usable for distance training and self learning courses via the Internet.

Before the final production of the training material a pilot short training course will be organised in order to test the satisfaction and the response of the users.

The use of the workstations with adaptive equipment at the libraries of the University of Macedonia and the University of Cyprus wil be evaluated. The evaluation will be based on the experiences and attitudes of the visually impaired users of the workstations. Also the experiences of the library-staff is will be taken into account.

To be able to measure the experiences and attitudes of the users a questionnaire will be constructed. This will be based on the validated questionnaire which has been used in the TESTLAB-project to evaluate the use of similar workstations different European countries.

The questionnaire will focus on topics like:

• Does the use of the workstations meet the needs and expectations of the users?
• Do the users reach their goals by using the workstations?
• The evaluation of the operation, functionallity and user-interface of the workstations.
• The physical accessibility of the workstation.

For the evaluation three measurements will be made. A zero measurement is meant to make an inventory of the users of the workstations, their characteristics (demographical and handicap-related variables), their needs and expectations. The first evaluation measurement will measure the evaluation of the workstations shortly after the first training and introduction to the workstation. The second evaluation measurement will take place towards the end of the project. The results of the measurements will together with the experiences of the librarians contribute to the overall evaluation of the use of the workstations.

-WWW page: ACCELERATE project will be promoted through a special web page, where all the outputs will be presented. This page can be also used as a communication tool with the public. The page will be designed with special care to be accessible by the visually impaired users through speech synthesis and Braille translator.

1. one brochure promoting the new Library Services of the University of Cyprus and the University of Macedonia for the potential users of the libraries in print, large print and braille promoting the new services in Greek language
2. one promoting the project openly to the public in Greek and English languages

The outputs of ACCELERATE will be widely presented through the organizing of

1. Dissemination Conference in the premises of the University of Cyprus in Nicosia, with the participation of members of the academic community, librarians, organizations for/of the blind, public Libraries, decision makers in political level.
2. Dissemination / Demonstration Seminar in the premises of the University of Macedonia in Thessaloniki, Greece, with the participation of librarians from other academic and public libraries of Greece, organizations for/of the blind.