Exploration of Academic Information Seeking and Library Use of the Blind and Visually Impaired Students in Croatia Silvana Šehić Sanjica Faletar Tanacković

Introduction 285 million visually impaired persons in the world (World Health Organization, 2013)  almost in Croatia (0,5% of total population) persons with reduced vision face many barriers in their everyday life and have limited access to post- secondary education

Introduction in order to facilitate the social participation of visually impaired students and improve their educational experiences, studies are needed to gain deeper understanding of how they interact with academic information  paucity of studies of their information needs and information seeking behavior (Smale, 1992; Schuyler, 1999; Saumure & Given, 2004)

Study Research questions  How are blind and visually impaired students accessing and using academic material?  What factors enhance/impede their successful information seeking?  How can academic libraries better serve the needs of this specific user group?

Study qualitative study conducted in September 2013  intensive process of population identification and recruitment of the interviewees semi structured interviews with nine visually impaired students enroled at Croatian universities two interviewed in person, seven via Skype duration 30 to 90 minutes

Instrument  demographic data  educational experience  academic information behavior  academic library use Ethical considerations  respect for dignitiy, autonomy, equality, diversity of participants  verbal consent Study

Major findings General demographic data  six blind, and three with reduced vision who cannot read conventional print  six female, three male  all study social sciences and humanities  from three universities: Osijek, Split, Zagreb  three undergraduate, six graduate students  all have GPA above 3,5  eight live independently

Major findings Living with visual impairment  disability influences their independence and quality of life  their position in the society depends as much on the community as on themselves important personal characteristics: open, communicative, hard- working, persistent „We have to be aware that we are creators of our destiny… We have to do something… and change something” (R2)

Major findings Studying with visual impairment  have to invest more time, effort and finances than sighted students  cannot participate in extracurricular activities (e.g. conferences)  have to fight prejudices  perceived as „special”  always have to ask for special treatment "Technical problems can always be solved and once you learn how to deal with them they are no more a problem. But prejudices, misunderstanding and labeling is something that, in my opinion, is much harder to deal with." (R1)

Major findings Information access and use  prefer electronic materials print materials have to be first transformed into the appropriate adapted format  face many challenges in location, access and use of academic information time intensive process depend on intermediary inaccessible information –lack of electronic materials –electronic documents in.pdf, documents scanned as pictures, hyperlinks in electronic documents, pictures with embedded text

Major findings Information access and use  put more value on information quality and its reliability than on the level of effort and time needed to find it (and adapt for usage)  very persistent  fully equal to their sighted peers in relation to information use "In interpreting the information a blind person can be just as good as, sometimes even better than the sighted student." (R5)

Major findings Information access and use  importance of interpersonal sources  adaptive technology facilitates their interaction with information scan print materials enlarge text/magnify screen translate text into audio forms (screen readers, speech synthesizers) –BUT »adaptive technology is expensive and its use is time- consuming!

Major findings Academic library use  although librarians treat them with respect students visit libraries (phyisically or virtually) only if they cannot find the material in any other way for only one interviewee library was always the first choice  barriers to library use architectural design complex procedure to check out books lack of accessible (electronic) material lack of adaptive technology in the library rigid library policies

Conclusion study produced valuable insights into the educational experience and information behavior of visually impaired students students contributed to the formulation of several recommendations aimed at improving academic library services for this specific user group

Recommendations for academic libraries pay more attention to the patrons’ handling of library material revise their policies provide guidelines for the design of accessible educational materials

Recommendations for academic libraries acquire adaptive technology and train the staff for its use adapt library materials for visually impaired students maintain the repository of adapted material collaborate with other academic libraries in the country and abroad, and NGOs

Thank you!