The Wheeled Librarian

As I have covered previously, in April of this year I was honored to receive a support staff scholarship to attend the ACRL conference in Cleveland, Ohio. The Dean of Library Services at my library left the choice between preferred travel choice with me (air vs car). I chose air for several reasons, including 2 facts:  

1. I had never traveled via plane before 

1. A car ride from southeast Alabama to Ohio is looooooooooooooong 

I had a wonderful time at the ACRL conference – in fact, it inspired me to begin “library school” (which I plan to start in Fall 2020). The air travel (via Delta) was a different story. I want to share my experience with everyone as a cautionary tale for those wheelchair-users like me out there who use air travel.  

Below is an excerpt of the complaint I submitted to both Delta and the US Dpt of Transportation, where it is currently being investigated. The US Dpt of Transportation representative assigned to my case assured me that I could share my experience detailed here with the public. Anyone is welcome to share this story on social media. 

Last month, I had to travel from my hometown of Dothan, AL to Cleveland, OH for a work conference. My husband traveled with me as an aid because I am wheelchair-bound. This was my first time flying, and I was incredibly nervous in everything going smoothly with embarking/disembarking from the plane as a person with a disability. We flew with Delta. Delta was contacted multiple times to ensure proper and safe care of me and my wheelchair. I was prepped beforehand of the wheelchair transfer process for each flight: they would have staff members safely transfer me from my wheelchair to a plane transfer chair and then to my plane seat, while my personal wheelchair would be stored with the plane luggage for the duration of the flight. I did not ask for any further accommodation beyond safely transferring me to/from my airplane seat, safely storing my personal wheelchair on the plane during the trip, a restroom break during layovers, and assistance in navigating the airport. I was assured not to worry about anything and that a Delta staff member would assist us through airport navigation from gate to gate. Me and my husband had tickets out of Dothan, Alabama to Cleveland, Ohio. Return passage also. Both flight paths had a one-hour layover in Atlanta, Georgia.  

Trip from Dothan on April 9^th, 2019: 

The flight from Dothan to Atlanta was great. Everything was taken care of, and the process was very simple. However, when we arrived in Atlanta and after the other passengers disembarked from the plane, the airport staff went to go get my wheelchair for me. They lost it for a while. About 50 minutes! It was located eventually and returned to me. When everything was settled with that, we had about 10 minutes to get over to the correct flight gate for the connecting flight to Cleveland. The flight gate was on the opposite end of the airport so we had to take the Airport tram to it. There wasn’t really any staff there to help us except for one staff member who verbally gave us some vague directions. We ended up getting to the gate at the last possible minute. They let us board the plane of course. We were the last ones on the plane. There was a seat mix-up also when we got on the plane and we ended up not sitting in our assigned seats. This was more of an issue because (1) we were the last ones on the plane and (2) we were exhausted and didn’t bother to argue that two other passengers were sitting in our assigned seats.  

Because of the delay in them losing my wheelchair and us having to hustle across the airport before we missed the flight, neither one of us, me and my husband, had time to go to the restroom or anything. We both had to go from boarding the plane leaving Dothan at about 10:30 till we ended up in Cleveland late that afternoon at 4pm before we could even use the restroom. It was pretty horrible and stressful. Not only that, I have certain medical needs, WHICH, AGAIN, DELTA WAS MADE VERY AWARE OF, and being denied access to a restroom for that amount of time could prove very dangerous to me. From Atlanta, we went to Cleveland, and everything at the Cleveland Airport went smoothly and calmly. 

Return trip to Dothan on April 14^th, 2019: 

Leaving Cleveland was just as smooth as when we arrived, save for 1 fact: the staff members who were transferring me dropped me. Let me repeat that. THEY DROPPED ME ON THE GROUND. Whenever they dropped me, they had already transferred me into the transfer chair so that they could take me on to the plane and transfer me into my actual plane seat. They put me in the transfer chair but did not secure me with the seat belts in the transfer chair and as they took their hands off, my face hit the floor. This transfer chair is just like a weight-lifting bench seat (kind of) with wheels on it (of course) and a high back. There is not really any kind of suitable foot rest, and there are no sides. Without seatbelts, there is no way for me to even stay stable enough to not fall out. It did not hurt me. I was more shocked and embarrassed. But I kept thinking, what if it was somebody who could not go through that without breaking something or some other kind of major medical issue. 

In Atlanta, there was some weather delays which put us back about an hour as far as arrival time. They didn’t lose my wheelchair this time, but they still took about 40 minutes to remember that they needed to assist me off of the plane after the other passengers had disembarked. We did have a staff member to assist us this time, and she helped us fly through the airport as quick as we could since there was a huge delay in helping me out of the plane. We ended up getting to our gate too late according to the original departure time for this connecting flight home. Luckily for us, the weather was not cooperating that day and ended up delaying the flight back to Dothan. Because of this, we lucked out, and when we got to the gate, the plane had not left yet. We had to wait for a while for the weather to clear up before we could board. Once we did, the rest of everything went well. We got back to Dothan safely. 

The experiences we had with Delta were absolutely horrible. I was neglected the proper medical care I was promised from the airline and their ADA / Air Carrier Access Act (ACAA) compliance. Beyond that, I was denied basic common decency and treated as less than human. Better and respectable care must be provided for air passengers with disabilities in the future. 

I recently received an invitation from Niche Academy offering a free webinar to interested library employees: Practicing Intellectual Freedom in the Library, where the foundations for understanding and practicing intellectual freedom as a librarian were laid out. The webinar was presented by assistant professor in the School of Information Science at the University of Kentucky, repeat presenter at many academic conferences, and multiple publishee (is that a word?) in professional journals like Library Quarterly: the illustrious Shannon Oltman.

For the more experienced scholars and librarians, I’m sure the webinar offered fresh research/analysis of the subject. For myself and other “underlings” interested in climbing the proverbial rungs of the librarian world ladder, it presented a solid introduction to intellectual freedom. For those that missed out on the fun, allow me to summarize …

Intellectual freedom is the right of every individual to both seek and receive information from all points of view without restriction.

American Library Association (ALA)

Intellectual freedom is essential to our fundamental right of freedom of speech and how that freedom plays out in the communities we serve as librarians.

If you forgot your US Constitutional Amendments, the First Amendment spells out our right to freedom of speech, FYI.

Thus, intellectual freedom and freedom of speech go hand in hand since freedom of speech is absolutely meaningless without the right to access information. Accessing and receiving information is vital in forming and expressing your own opinion. Expressing your opinion => FREEDOM OF SPEECH.

One thing to remember is that the right of intellectual freedom is for ALL. This fact is illustrated by many relevant court cases over the past 75 years:

As all these cases are fascinating and should be researched further. I invite you to dig a little deeper into the foundations of our right to intellectual freedom and how it relates to freedom of speech.

One of the cases in particular struck major interest in me: 1982’s Board of Education v. Pico, where the school board attempted to remove several books that they claimed were “anti-American” and “just plain filthy” from the district’s junior high schools and high schools. A sample of these “inappropriate” books include The Fixer by Bernard Malamud (U.S. National Book Award and Pulitzer Prize) and Laughing Boy by Oliver LaFarge (Pulitzer Prize). A group of five high school students led by Steven Pico filed a lawsuit against the school board claiming a violation of First Amendment rights. The students ultimately won. The Supreme Court decided that school boards may not remove books from school library shelves simply because they dislike the ideas contained in those books.

The ALA created a formal Bill of Rights to govern all libraries, which serves as a guide in determining and implementing services offered to library patrons and emphasizes the concept of intellectual freedom. Although these basic principles should chaperon the service of all libraries, questions do arise regarding the use of these principles in the specific practices of the different types of libraries.

Every library serves a community – a group of people. This community as well as issues involving the interpretation of the Library Bill of Rights and how it pertains to intellectual freedom varies among the different types of libraries: public libraries, school libraries, academic libraries, and special libraries. For instance, public libraries generally serve a town or county and may come across issues involving minors in the library and how it affects intellectual freedom. On the other hand, academic libraries (like mine) serve faculty, staff, students, and sometimes alumni/local public and may sometimes come across an issue with collection development and how it touches intellectual freedom.

Sidebar, it is extremely important to have a collection development policy in place for your library, regardless of the type of library in which you work. Not only does this policy provide guidance for the creation of a library collection, it also honors the right of intellectual freedom. This includes “controversial” items. Ensure that an item is not rejected immediately because it may be controversial to some of you patrons by setting out to create a diverse and appealing library collection with multiple perspectives. It’s perfectly acceptable to not like something in your collection, but your personal feelings on the material cannot be the basis for exclusion. I’m not going to include the collection development policy for the Troy University libraries because it is quite lengthy, but is accessible at www.troy.edu/libraries if you feel so inclined.

This, of course, was just a brief overview of the concept of intellectual freedom. Shannon Oltmann has a book coming out this year, though, that will delve into all the deets involving intellectual freedom. Please keep an eye out for it!

You’re probably wondering what this topic has to even do with my current role in my library. After all, I am only a library assistant. Collection development is not in my wheelhouse. The materials that I order for our acquisitions have already been determined according to our collection development policy. AAh, but I do manage our lease book account. The Dothan campus of Troy University (where I work) takes part in a lease book program with one of our vendors: we can select 10 new popular books to keep in a specific section of our collection for about 2 years before they must be returned. I collect faculty and staff requests, and when there is extra room in the 10-book monthly limit, I add the popular books that I believe students will potentially want to read. Sometimes, a popular fiction book by Stephen King or George R. R. Martin makes the cut. Sometimes, it is a popular political book.

As librarians, we are selectors, not censors. We look for reasons to provide access, not curtail or limit access.

Shannon Oltman

Intellectual freedom is the right of every individual to both seek and receive information from all points of view without restriction. All viewpoints. Even if I don’t follow one. I can’t exclude it just because I don’t like it as long as it follows our collection development policy and the Library Bill of Rights. When asked during the Q&A section of the webinar about how to best reconcile with yourself the possibility that certain materials – that may be thought of as “controversial” or something that you personally don’t agree with – may incite bad behavior, Shannon responded by saying that silencing these “negative” voices may not prove to be a fair solution. Instead, it is important to challenge this by still providing these voices but adding more of the positive voices. Great thought-provoking words. I’ll admit, sometimes I need this reminder when selecting (in particular) political books for our patrons for our lease book program. Below is a sample of what I mean.

This is a current selection of some political books that I have ordered for the popular books section of our library. As you can see, I try to keep all opinions visible and represented to keep the objective of presenting all viewpoints of a debate alive. This is not the easiest thing in the world – Shannon‘s message in this intellectual freedom webinar IS and WAS a needed and essential reminder of our roles as librarians in the world.

Wow, I really did not expect for so many people to be interested in my first post or to even like it so much. Thank you guys so much for the overwhelmingly-positive response to it. Flabbergasted isn’t the right word, but just go with me. I figured I should post a little bio on myself for those interested before the next real blog post. It feels a bit weird to lay it all out there, but here ya go. Enjoy.

For starters – and probably the most glaringly-obvious – I am wheelchair-bound due to a little something called Friedreich’s Ataxia, a progressive, neurological disorder that affects the muscles in the body. It especially affects your ambulatory limbs (legs and arms), motor skills, and speech. The severity of the muscle loss, which muscles are affected the most, and potential side effects that may present themselves (diabetes, scoliosis, heart disease, liver problems, blindness, and much more) vary among those suffering from this disorder. Friedreich’s Ataxia is super-rare with no cure or treatment at the moment, only treatment for certain side effects if they present themselves in you. Sidebar, Friedreich’s Ataxia is commonly referred to as FA, which I am going to use for the remainder of this article because I don’t want to keep taking the time to spell it out correctly …

Now, the above brief description of FA is for the laypeople like me – just a rundown. If you are curious about the specific, medical, gobble-ty-gook of it all, visit curefa.org. For me, I have experienced mainly muscle degeneration in my legs and arms, motor skills, and speech patterns, with no real side effects. I got lucky on that front – watch me jinx myself now. FA is unfortunately progressive and genealogical. I was born with the disorder, but it didn’t present itself until I was about eight or nine. At that time, I was mostly having trouble with my coordination: my walking and running were becoming clumsy, I was tripping over my feet a lot … that kind of thing. It took until I was 12 years old for enough progression to occur in me to warrant a blood test to prove FA.

Upon graduating from high school, I attended Troy University’s Dothan campus, where I earned my BS in Finance in 2009, followed by MBA in 2011, which were both obtained with honors. My employment with the library world began at Troy University. I am currently a library assistant (for Technical Services) but began as a part-time Circulation library aid. When I was an undergraduate student, the director of the library was teaching a history course that I ended up taking. This director hosted several library events that were open to the students during my undergraduate and graduate studies. I really enjoyed all the events and would try to go to them as much as I could. Also, I was in the library all the time to study during my undergraduate and graduate studies (overachiever? I don’t know the meaning of the word 😉). Throughout all this, I developed a familiarity with some of the library staff members and said library director.

In 2010, whenever I was in my second year of graduate school, the library director offered me a part-time Circulation library aid position. Upon finishing graduate school, I decided to stay on with the library. After a few years, a full-time position opened, and I got promoted to it in 2013. To begin with, this position was library assistant for Technical Services. In essence, I served as assistant under the library’s Technical Services librarian and would focus on managing the acquisitions and processing functions that fell under her. This included purchasing books and other materials requested, paying their invoices, copy-cataloging them, and preparing them when they arrived for the end-user (barcodes, stamps, due date slips, etc.). At that time, our library staff was comprised of almost double the amount of staff members that we have today. I was the only one that did my job, but there were others that handled the foot traffic and assistance of the students.

This library assistant for Technical Services position has since evolved and covers so many tasks to compensate for our reduction in staff members. I am still assistant to the Technical Services librarian and manage the acquisitions and processing functions for her (described above), but now, I also split my time in between doing that job for her, assisting and directing Reference users, creating informative and engaging displays to drum in foot traffic, managing one of our lease book accounts, and assisting the current library director with various projects on occasion. A hat of many sizes for sure.

I have come to discover that my intended career path lies within the library world. I absolutely love my job. Being able to interact with our student body brings immense satisfaction to my life. Don’t get me wrong, serving those that use the library can be a challenge at times. Okay, jeez, stop twisting my arm … it can be extremely challenging every day. You must deal with people at their best and at their very worst. However, the payout that you get when you successfully help out – say – a student who is stressed out in the face of some massive final and in need of a timely solution to solve whatever problem they are facing … oh dude, that’s just the bee’s knees.

On a personal note, I am a huge pop culture nerd. Those within the pop culture nerd-dom would refer to me as a fangirl. Chances are, if there is a TV show, movie franchise, popular musical, new best-selling book, or something of the like that you want to know more about or discuss, give me a call. I find extreme ease and delight in being able to connect with the students and even coworkers in this way. In all seriousness though, I believe this does grant me some level of connection with what is going on in the world and with the people that we serve within the library. Listen up folks, apparently, being a nerd proves advantageous. Snowballing off that, I am also crazy about those furry friends that we call dogs. I have 2 small dogs that are spoiled rotten … and I mean rotten.  Annnnnd just to round this whole thing out, I have been very happily married since 2012. Welp, that’s me in a nutshell.

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Thanks for joining me!

This is a blog detailing the journey of a librarian working in a university library with a physical disability: you know, the ups and downs. 

Despite the fact that studies surrounding the issue of diversity within librarianship as a profession are on the rise, only a few have of these studies ave looked a those librarians with disabilities. Librarians with disabilities constitute  such a substantial minority of librarians – 3.7% in the US! ¹

I am determined to put my voice out there for all the other underrepresented librarians and shed light on this part of my life. We are not alone.

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¹Oud, J. (2019). Systemic Workplace Barriers for Academic Librarians with Disabilities. [online]      Crl.acrl.org. Available at: https://crl.acrl.org/index.php/crl/article/viewFile/16948/18654              [Accessed 23 Apr. 2019].

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