If you are creating syllabi or other statement of learning for your library, you need to have some sort of statement in there about how you are ready to include and welcome everyone to your library, and how it is accessible to all.

We are including an excerpt from this article to give you some ideas for your own work.

The Irony of Inclusion and Accessibility Statements

“As I was preparing for this new semester, I found myself copying and pasting the statement on inclusion and accessibility from my previous syllabi. I had spent some time on editing the course description, contemplating the desired learning outcomes and comparing forms of assessment. But when it came to the statement on inclusion and accessibility, I hadn’t thought much about what I want to communicate to my students.

It seems it’s not just me. For, despite some excellent existing resources on this topic, the parts of our syllabi devoted to inclusion and accessibility remain somewhat, well, exclusive and inaccessible.

Take, for instance, the first couple of lines of this statement: “The university is committed to upholding all aspects of the federal Americans with Disabilities Act of 1990 (ADA) and Section 504 of the Rehabilitation Act of 1973.” If you didn’t fully understand this sentence, it is unlikely that your students will.

But even without all the legal language, statements may feel mechanical and impersonal. Take the following one: “In accordance with federal law, if you have a documented disability, you may be eligible to request accommodations. Any requests will be reviewed in a timely manner to determine their appropriateness to this setting. If you have a documented learning difficulty which may entitle you to reasonable accommodations, please contact Disability Services to initiate an assessment as early as possible in the term.”

Put yourself in the shoes of a student whose learning is affected by some condition — visible or invisible, physical or psychological, rare or common. Would this statement make you feel academically at home? I believe that we can improve our statements on inclusion and accessibility in three respects: language, tone and scope.”

Check out the rest of the article, with details about each of these elements, here.