Customers with disabilities: the academic library response

The article surveys the general academic library response within the UK to disability legislation and the growing numbers of students declaring disabilities entering higher education.

Following a brief review of the provisions of legislation, particularly the Spe,"Integrated Manufacturing Systems" }Integrated_Manufacturing_Systemscial Educational Needs And Disability Act of 2001, and the response of funding and other bodies, the article addresses specific regional – that is, collaborative – and individual institutional initiatives.

Responses from libraries are found to be very positive and offer a service‐level benchmark to libraries in other sectors or elsewhere.

This is a geographically focussed paper, looking at the UK and in particular the Scottish position, and other countries may present different findings.

An account of the implementation of a variety of initiatives aimed at disabled users, with much relevance to practitioner concerns.

The paper gives a valuable overview of the progress made in academic libraries to date on disability issues in Scotland, and in the UK, and shows that both the legislation combined with the inherent customer‐service values of the library profession have helped raise the standard of library performance in this regard.