Perceptions of Public Library Accessibility for People with Disabilities

More than 5,000 households with a person identified as having a physical, mental, or emotional condition that impairs participation in activities were surveyed about their opinions concerning barriers to public library use and opinions about efforts by public libraries to be useful to people with disabilities. Results showed that perceptions of accessibility, collections, and presence of assistive or adaptive devices for people with disabilities were slightly more positive if someone in the household had used the public library in the past year. Data used for the study were from the October 2002 Current Population Survey, a federal survey conducted by the U.S. Census Bureau for the Bureau of Labor Statistics.