Interview with Chris
Taylor from Gold Coast City Council Library
13 May 2013
Could you please state
your role at Nerang Branch of Gold Coast City Council and your position
portfolio?
Branch
librarian at Nerang with Gold Coast City Council.
Role
is to manage Branch Library operations i.e. facility, collections/resources,
services and programs and staff including leading team and ensuring
excellent customer service 25,000 customers, 600,000 loans per year and 250,000
visits per year. One of the important roles for branch librarians is engaging
with local community and developing programs and services that meet community
needs e.g. literacy and outreach programs in conjunction with local schools. As
branch librarian I also actively participate in the service wide management
team that develops and implements the strategic direction of library in line
with Council and Library business plans.
The library provides a program once a month for
people with special needs, could you tell me about what the program entails and
is it open to all age groups?
Open to all ages but nearly all attendees have
been a parent/carer with special needs children usually 2 to 10 year’s age
group. Session is compiled by library staff in consultation with
a Speech Pathologist, who attends the session. Based on a theme e.g. animals or
spring. Stories, songs, actions, activity sheets and toys from the Special
Needs collection. Parents/carers attend with their child. Speech pathologist
engages with parent and child during play and activities to instruct and
assist.
An important part of a Library service is to know
about what a particular community needs and to respond appropriately. What led
to this special needs library being developed?
Local
and Gold Coast wide statistics - nationally 20% of the population have
some form of what can be termed a "disability". Significant numbers
of people with specific disabilities identified in area e.g. autism,
developmental conditions - support services and community groups were very
active also. When new library being planned and built in 2003 local community
disability groups supported special needs library resources as part
of new facility. Nerang was, and still is, central for access
across Gold Coast so ideal location to service whole of Gold Coast.
Collaboration with organisations in your community
seems to be playing an important role in the library providing this important
service, could you tell me a bit more about that?
Special
Needs Library has an advisory group of local therapists and disability workers.
They advise on purchase of resources and refer customers to service. Our
special needs email group has over 50 local organisations and community groups.
Basically
the library and librarians are good at organising, lending/circulating resources
and answering questions about the collection (providing access) in
response to the Special Needs community needs and preferences. The library is a
place/facility that is accessible has good opening hours and links with local
community groups in this case special needs groups e.g. Therapists, Autism Australia
etc to provide equity of access and opportunity for people. It will
be interesting to see if the current legislation before parliament provides
additional resources for organisations and services supporting people with
disabilities.
What is the most rewarding part of your job and the
major benefits to your children with special needs?
Staff
and myself assisting carers, parents and the children find the service
very rewarding. The tasks are not unlike any library work selecting,
organising and providing access but is humbling to see what the carers and children
cope with and the difference the resources can make. It also
provides people with special needs access to other library resources
e.g. DVDs, picture books, music etc. A social benefit is that
the general community sees and interacts with people with disabilities in
library spaces i.e. promote awareness, understanding and engagement with people
with disabilities.
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