Deaf Group Outing to Cantigny Park

On Saturday, I went to Cantigny Park with ALDA Chicago. This was an important day for me because it was my last event as Social Chair for the group. I found I still have more to learn about deaf awareness and creating accessible events.

At the Visitors Center we viewed a captioned film. The captions were standard - we did not have to make a special request for this. When we went to the McCormick Museum, we also viewed a captioned film. I learned a great deal about the McCormick family and their influence in Chicago. So far, so good. Unfortunately, when we began our guided tour through the mansion, I discovered that the available lighting was limited. This was in keeping with the practice of the day when the house was occupied. The low lighting may have helped with ambience, but it made lipreading the guide quite difficult. I was dismayed to see several of my friends unable to follow the tour guide's speech. At the start of the tour, we were given a brochure on the home, but it had little of the information covered in the guide's narration. What our group needed was a copy of the script. I don't know whether we would have been given a copy or not (I have had the request denied before), but I wish I had thought to ask.

After that bit, the rest of the day went well even with overcast skies and a little rain. The gardens were beautiful and relaxing to explore. The First Division Museum was very informative on the soldiers' experiences in World War I.

We had lunch at the restaurant on site, appropriately named Le Jardin (the garden in French). This was a wonderful time of socializing. I think we would have liked to stay at the table forever. There were 17 of us speaking, signing, repeating, and writing - whatever was needed to communicate. This part of the day reminded me of the best of my time as ALDA Chicago Social Chair. It was gratifying to be part of making this type of social interaction possible. In future, I will look forward to participating in such events without having the management aspect.

If you would like to see additional photos from my day at Cantigny Park, you can see them on Flickr.

Show Us the Captions - this November

During the month of November 2012, people with hearing loss and deafness, along with their friends and families, will be asking theaters to demonstrate accessibility, when they go to the movies as part of the “Show Us the Captions!” advocacy campaign.

Theaters can provide captioning either through showing open caption films where all seats in the theater have access or by distributing individual captioning devices with access limited to the number of devices available.

Sponsored by Collaborative for Communication Access via Captioning, this campaign is intended to

• Promote captioning to potential movie goers who don’t know their theater has it.
• Demonstrate the real need for captioning to theater owners.
• Raise awareness of inclusion and accessibility issues to the general public.
• Show appreciation to the cinemas that provide access via captioning.

The Association for Late Deafened Adults, Chicago chapter, is spearheading the campaign and hosting their own event on November 17, 2012. All organizations and interested people are invited to join them in planning their own events. Talk to your local cinema now, rally friends and neighbors, select a date, and begin to get the word out soon.

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Regular readers may recall that I wrote about this idea last month. Since that time, I've been busy working to make it a reality. First I created the graphic above and posted the idea on the CCAC members' forum. I'm happy to say the reaction there was very positive. Lauren Storck, the founder of CCAC, decided to take the campaign on as a Captioning Advocacy Project (CAP) for the organization. With their backing, I have been able to spread the idea even further.

To help other groups participate, I created a Facebook site and posted the following tips for event coordinators:

1. Choose a theater near you that offers some form of captioning.
2. Choose a date in November for your event.
3. Ask friends, family, and coworkers NOW to save that date to join you and others with hearing loss at the movies.
4. Contact the theater’s manager
• to explain that your group will be coming on that day,
• find out how far in advance the movie show times for that day will be available,
• and if the theater uses a closed captioning system, check to make sure enough devices will be available.
5. Announce the event to your local hearing loss support group so they can invite their family and friends, and coworkers and help you spread the word.
6. Post the date and location of your event on Facebook at https://www.facebook.com/ShowUsTheCaptions so we can promote it.
7. Follow up with your group once the movie schedule is available to finalize your plans.
8. Follow up with the theater manager when you have a good idea of how many will be coming and how many will be using the captioning.
9. Let us know on Facebook https://www.facebook.com/ShowUsTheCaptions if you have any questions.

Then I got started setting up Chicago's event. I've been in contact with two Marcus Theaters so far. One location has 10 CaptiView devices and the other has 6 plus the offer to get more if they are needed. I still need volunteers. Two of mine were unable to help after all, but another person has stepped up, thankfully. I will keep you informed as this project progresses. If any of you want to join in and arrange a Show Us the Captions event in your area, that would be great.

What's It Like When Captioning Isn't Available

Don't Leave Me Out!

Please take a few moments to watch this important film created by CCAC (Collaborative for Communication Access via Captioning.) I am proud to say I know two of the women featured in it!

What's the Big Idea, Sarah?

I saw my blogging friend Karen Putz recently and she asked "Sarah, what's next for you?" The last time she asked me something similar, I ended up going to Costa Rica with Discovering Deaf Worlds. As one of my role models, Karen seems to have an effect on me - pushing me forward to try something new. At the time she and I talked, I did not know it then, but I was about to launch a Big Idea.

Before I tell you what it is, let me share some background information. Ever since I became involved with the hard of hearing/deaf community, I've been learning about the importance of movie theater captioning. We want full access to first run films and it's been a l-o-n-g time coming our way. There have been some legal successes and promises of future technological improvements, but I wonder how much longer will it be before our vision of full access is realized?

As social chair for ALDA Chicago, it's my responsibility to organize social events on a monthly basis. Last year one member suggested having a dinner and a movie night, possibly in several locations to make it more convenient for our membership which covers a large geographic area. I'm ready to go forward with the idea. I like the thought of having a group of people come to a theater and by their presence say in effect, "Here we are, show us your accessibility!"

But the logistics are going to be problematic, I admit. I've done some online research and have only found one theater in the city (so far) that offers both OC and CC films on the same night. I want my group to have a choice after all just like the other patrons do! There's also the question of devices. If caption devices are needed, how many does a theater have available? The one I checked has ten which is great if our group numbers less than ten. But what about the eleventh person in line? Or the twelfth, etc...? Is this an idea before it's time?

That's why I'm bringing the idea to you. What if this dinner and a movie night were bigger than the Chicago area? What if other individuals or organizations joined us by going to visiting their local theaters? What if those of us who need captioning set aside a weekend night to go to a theater and say, "Show us your accessibility!"

ALDA Chicago will host this event in November 2012. If you're interested in having a similar event or you have thoughts on how this might work (or might not), please leave me a comment or contact me by email. I especially want to hear from you if you've tried an event this before or have tried contacting your local theaters about captioning.

I can plan a one time event at one theater in Chicago, but I'd like to see if this idea can get bigger than that. Will you join me?

Update June 13
I've heard from an organization in Kansas City that's interested!

Captions Set Automatically to ON

I just learned this really cool tech tip about a piece of HTML code that will turn captions on automatically when you embed a closed captioned YouTube video onto a website.

Simply add to the embed code
&cc_load_policy=1
after the movie URL and inside the quotation marks.

I did this for a short video I made for my job and it really works. A viewer still has the option to turn the captions off, but what I like is that the default setting is for accessibility! To find out more and see an example, check out YouTube's help page Showing Captions by Default.

Traveling in London with Hearing Loss

My trip to London last month was the first time I had traveled abroad since being fitted with hearing aids. Visiting a foreign country always provides challenges and I honestly wondered how my hearing loss would affect my ability to communicate and participate in all the activities I had planned. The good news is that I did just fine! Everyone I dealt with in London was courteous to me and no one from salesclerks to train ticket sellers refused to repeat what I missed. Of course, I had my son with me who has normal hearing. But as it turned out, the British accent was nearly indecipherable for him. I actually understood people better than he did!


At our hotel, we were happy to discover that our room’s television had captions (see photo above). They were easily activated by a clearly marked button on the remote. It was funny to us that my son needed the captions just as much as I did. We really enjoyed watching the programs that were on in the evening. In my opinion, the British captions were better than the captions I’ve experienced at home in regards to their accuracy and timing. My English friends were surprised to hear that assessment. Of course it was based on a limited sampling of programming.


Many of the trains in London had captions posted for every announcement made on the loudspeaker including the names of stops and information about connecting trains. This was extremely helpful. I remember during my previous trips to London (even before knowing of my hearing loss) having to keep a watchful eye on the tube station map on the train car wall and a lookout for the station walls to see the names of each stop we made, always being careful to keep track of the number of remaining stops. Having the captions on the train helped me to relax and feel confident that I would disembark at the right station.

Deaf people get a discounted price for tickets to the royal palaces. Deafinitely Girly told me this so I decided to ask for the discount when we visited Hampton Court. By simply pointing to my hearing aids, I was admitted with a student priced ticket and my son as “my carer” got in free. That was great for my wallet at the ticket office, but I did find it a bit embarrassing when we were at the Maze entry and someone asked which one of us was the carer. I pointed to my son and said “He is” with a little roll of my eyes. It was ironic because inside the maze my carer took off and left me to my own devices. When he despaired of my EVER finding my way out, he did come in and find me, though, so I guess he was a good carer after all.

I flew over and returned on American Airlines. There were several movie options to watch on the personal screen attached to the back of the passenger’s seat in front of me. Unfortunately, none of them were captioned. Not even the foreign films which were all presented in English. I tried watching movies but even with the volume turned up to the max, I could not understand the dialog over the sound of the plane’s engines. Sigh…I wrote an email to American Airlines about it after I returned.

I received the following reply:

We are in receipt of your email regarding the lack of closed captioning video presentations aboard our aircraft. I must say you raise an issue to which we have given much thought.

Although we do have a few large viewing screens on some aircraft, the majority of customers viewing video presentations do so on smaller bulkhead or ceiling-mounted screens (a necessity if customers toward the front or rear of a cabin are to have any chance at comfortable viewing), as well as personal video monitors installed in individual first class seats and portable media players distributed to customers in our business and first class cabins on International and Transcon flights. While these arrangements extend our "reach" throughout the aircraft, there are obvious limitations on screen size in all these examples. Because we have limited ability from a logistical standpoint to assure that passengers requiring captioning will always be seated in a particular area of the aircraft, we would have to provide captioning on all screens. Providing legible captioning forces a reduction in picture size to unacceptably small dimensions for all passengers.

Open-captioning is another option; but because current video architecture allows only for an "all-or-nothing" system on board, we effectively return to square one. Another disadvantage to this option is that open-captioned movies are typically unavailable in such a format until three to six months after the uncaptioned version is on the market. Still another factor with captioning of any kind is the inability to provide more than one translation on international flights; we currently provide dual language audio translations in such cities.

In addition, thank you for feedback about our Customer Relations email form on AA.com. Since it's a standard form and we might need to follow up with a passenger by phone, the form is set up to require a phone number. However, if you prefer or require a response in writing, simply letting us know (as you've done) is appreciated.

We do appreciate your interest in these matters and the spirit in which you wrote. We pledge to continue our monitoring of available technology in this area and thank you for the opportunity to share our thoughts.

Readers, what has been your experience with traveling with hearing loss?

Watching a Film in ASL

Tonight I had the unique opportunity of viewing the ASL film Gerald at an event sponsored by a local deaf organization. I had never watched a movie entirely in ASL before. This film was audio free - no sound whatsoever. I found myself liking that aspect a great deal. Whenever I watch a movie that has been captioned with the sound effects included, I am distracted by the fact that I didn't hear the sound mentioned. I will ask anyone watching with me, "Did you hear that noise?" It was a relief not to have that distraction tonight. In fact, I didn't even mentally fill in the sounds either. I just embraced the quiet and felt drawn into the experience of someone profoundly deaf. All the characters in this movie sign. Some speak and naturally I found myself reading their lips. Fortunately for me and any other viewers who are not fluent in ASL, the film is subtitled in English.

The plot was compelling. Imagine that as the son of a single mother all your life you had longed for family connections. Now just when you are about to be married, you discover your mother hasn't told you the truth about your father. Even more pressing is the fact that you have an autistic grandfather who is about to be evicted from his nursing home. Would you be willing to take him into your home and care for him even at the risk of losing your fiancee? That is the dilemma faced by the main character.

I recommend this film highly. You can read a synopsis of Gerald and view its trailer at this website. To read more about the making of the film, specifically the parts played by the principal and middle school students of California School for the Deaf, check out this link, [a PDF document].

Sprint WebCapTel: Have You Tried It Yet?

I learned about Sprint's free WebCapTel service at a recent hearing loss support group meeting. As I tend to avoid telephone calls as much as possible, I was intrigued by the idea of being able to hear a caller's voice and access a captioned version of what the caller said on my PC.

I had never tried a relay service before. Instead I've relied upon turning my telephone volume all the way up which I'm sure is not good for my ears. It's been a long time since I enjoyed a nice relaxing chat on the phone.

The Sprint representatives at the meeting suggested trying out the service by calling someone "safe". So I started by calling my husband. I was amused when at first the captioner came back with [speaker unclear]. Yes, that's been my experience too! I felt validated. After that first "speech bump", the rest of our brief conversation went fine. There seemed to be a three second delay between the finish of what he said and the start of the captioning. Not bad.

Then I tried calling my friend, Linda. She is someone I have missed talking to by phone. Before my hearing loss was identified, we used to have hours long conversations to the delight of the long distance companies. She admitted that she'd avoided calling me knowing how difficult it is for me now. We did pretty well using WebCapTel. Lately we've been instant messaging each other so we were used to having a delay between our replies. We got quite a few chuckles out of the captioning mistakes. The captioner prints what he/she heard and then analyzes it. If he/she comes up with a better answer, it prints those words in brackets like this: ... woman irking at the library [working].

My third call was to my mom. We had trouble getting the timing to work for us. I think if she could have seen the captioning as it appeared on my screen, it might have gone better. When I called my sister next, I made sure to keep her informed of where the captioning was at. To her credit she made a huge effort to speak slowly and clearly and the captioning was very accurate as a result. But it seemed to me as if this was perhaps too much to ask of someone. It felt intrusive and awkward conversing this way.

As a hard of hearing resident of Illinois, I'm eligible to receive a free captioned telephone for my home. It will caption all the outgoing calls I make. It will caption incoming calls that are directed through a relay service. Sprint also offers a $99 telephone model that will caption both incoming and outgoing calls automatically. I think that is the one I would like to eventually purchase. For now, I am going to keep using WebCapTel until my family, friends, and I are more comfortable with captioned phone service.

What are your thoughts on WebCapTel?

Note: This blog post has been edited since it was originally posted. A reader commented that the service works through human captioners not voice recognition software. I have edited the post to reflect that. If I had known it was a human captioning the call, I wouldn't have laughed at the captioning mistakes. My apologies.

I've just been corrected once again by a reader. The system uses both a human captioner and voice recognition software. See the comments section for more details.

New Site for Captioned Internet Videos

Update 12/28/2010: The captvids.com website is no longer available. However, the funny captioned video at the end of this post is still worth a look.


Ask and ye shall receive. Matthew 7:7

Just last week at work, I was complaining to my coworkers about the lack of captioning for Internet videos. I get annoyed to find a video story online that I'd like to know more about only to discover it's not captioned.

Did you know that YouTube is the 4th most visited website in the world? Without captioning, this incredible source of entertainment and news is not fully accessible to the deaf and hard of hearing community. But now there's a new website called captvids.com dedicated to providing access to YouTube videos.

The wonderful Bill Cresswell has teamed up with two other men, Jeff and Danyoul to provide this service. They accept requests for captioning through the forum on their website. They also offer an RSS feed so you can stay current with the videos they're captioning. Be sure to visit their site and if you like what you see, spread the word.

Below is my favorite video from their site. Everyone I've shared it with has gotten a good laugh from it. Enjoy!

Captions, captions, captions!

[Trumpet fanfare: da da da daaaa]

At long last, we have a television in our home with captions. [Cheering]

Here's my first impressions: I love, love, love captions. I can't believe how much I was missing without them. The captions that are perfectly in sync with the dialogue are fabulous! In my first evening of watching, I noticed commercials seemed to have the best captions of all. Even sound effects were noted. [smile]

On the other hand, the captions for an entertainment news program I watched were less than optimal. [frown] They ran behind and had many errors. When I missed a key word or phrase in the dialogue, I would wait for it to appear in the captioning, only to see that sentence skipped over completely. [sigh] I guess for now I will probably avoid watching "live" television shows. I've been spoiled by the excellent captioning I've grown accustomed to on movie DVDs.

Actions Speak Louder Than Words: Bill Cresswell

I'm finding myself becoming more "caption dependent" all the time. This week I went to a movie with open captions that I wouldn't have gone to otherwise. The movie (Duplicity) was so-so as I expected but getting to see the dialogue was very enjoyable. In my house, it's become standard practice to switch the captions on for a DVD as soon as the previews are finished.

That's why I want to take a moment to salute Bill Cresswell, whose personal mission is "captioning the Internet one video at a time". He has published an Open Letter to Studios and TV Networks calling for them to caption internet videos. In the meantime, he has stepped up to the challenge of captioning videos for those of us who need them through his website. He regularly captions movie trailers and will caption videos upon request. I asked for his help once and he responded very quickly to my request. He does this on his own time at no charge. His website even includes a link to donate to Deaf and Hard of Hearing Services, an organization in his local community.

Bill is hearing. He is a self described "web developer, family guy, and singing fool". He works for a theatre that provides captions and described audio (for the blind). He's learning ASL and is a true friend to the deaf and hard of hearing.

From the bottom of my heart, Bill, thank you for all you do.

Collaboration, Communication, and Captioning at the Conference

Photo credit
Today was day two of my conference in Chicago. The Web Goddess and I arrived this morning in time for the complimentary breakfast- quite the spread I might add, not your usual muffin/bagel & coffee fare. We went to our first session which was on collaboration between libraries and IT departments. The Web Goddess said she will go bananas if she has to hear the word collaboration one more time. It's the theme of our track for the conference, I pointed out.

Our second session was in a new room. I am happy to say that my ALD (assistive listening device) worked just fine. What a difference it made too. I loved being able to adjust the volume up and down for each speaker's voice.

After this, we gave ourselves an hour off. Oh, did this help me. I took out my hearing aids and curled up in a comfy chair and read a book. Then it was time for lunch. We were supposed to have "roundtable discussions" while we ate. The arrangement was that you could choose where you wanted to sit based on the topic posted on a tabletop sign. The Web Goddess and I deliberately chose a table without a sign so I can't tell you how those designated dialogues went.

Lunch was socially awkward for me. When there was just one or two other people at our table, I felt comfortable interacting. But once more people joined our table, I found myself shutting down and directing all my conversation to my colleague seated next to me. I have always considered myself shy in group situations and now I have to face the possibility that my hearing loss may be partially responsible. I hate it when someone speaks to me and I only catch half of what they're saying.

Earlier that day we had been informed that there would be a raffle drawing at lunch and the top prize was $500 gift card. In my typical hard of hearing way, I assumed the prize was a gift card for the vendor that told us about the raffle. Not interested, I declined to enter the drawing. Imagine my chagrin when the prize turned out to be a $500 American Express gift card. I can only hope I learned something here about making sure I get all the details next time.

The highlight of my day came after lunch when I went to a poster session presented by a team from Eastern Illinois University. They have been working with captioning media. Since that is something the Web Goddess and I have been interested in getting going at our university and we recently received the long awaited software for it, I couldn't wait to talk to these people.

They informed me that it is now the law in Illinois that all media posted to a state website must be captioned. I was unaware of that. As information technology people, their focus was on creating programming that would make the process easier. I was really impressed by their work although I certainly didn't understand all the technical aspects of it. I asked if they had received any feedback on their work (meaning from deaf or hard of hearing students). They just talked about feedback from their colleagues at other universities. I tried to communicate to them how wonderful their work was and what a positive impact it would have for the deaf and hard of hearing. I'm not sure if they really got what I was saying. I think for them they were focused on the technical challenges and the concern with following the law. Nevertheless it's good to know that smart people are working on these issues and making accessibility a reality. They said they would help me in any way they could with my own projects. Collaboration, it's a good thing. (Just don't tell the Web Goddess I said so.)

CBS Amazing Race and Captioned Video Clips

Today I was on the CBS Amazing Race site and noticed that some of their videos are now offered with closed captioning. The only ones captioned so far are for clips of Elimination Station (where eliminated teams are sequestered until the end of the race). It's a start and I hope that CBS will caption more of their Amazing Race videos soon.

My Letter to the Theatre Manager about Showing More Captioned Films

As previously promised, here is the letter I wrote to the one theatre in my area that shows captioned films. It was reviewed and revised by Sheri Caveda of Fifth Freedom.

Dear [Theatre Manager],

I’m writing to thank you for providing open caption films at your theatre. Being able to read the words on the screen makes the movie more accessible to me as I have a hearing loss and find myself missing parts of the dialogue in regular films. Although I live in [My Town] I drive a half hour to come to your theatre to attend these shows. Watching movies is a fun activity for me when I am able to fully participate in the experience.

Would you consider offering captioned films more than two days a month? The Tuesday and Wednesday evenings that the films are shown are not always convenient. I would love to be able to attend a captioned film on the weekend with my family. It would be truly wonderful if you added a Friday or Saturday evening, or even a Sunday afternoon show time. Having captioned films available four days a month (with one on the weekend) would make it easier for me and my family to attend your showings.

Thank you for considering my request. I look forward to your response.
Sincerely,

[My Name]

I waited to write the letter until now so it could be part of my local hearing loss support group's project. I still would like to write a letter to the theatre in my own neighborhood that does not offer any open captioned films. I think I'll wait until I see what response I get from this letter first. Stay tuned.

Local Hearing Loss Support Group to Tackle Theatre Captioning

Timing is everything. And being in the right place at the right time.

Recently Eddie has been reporting on efforts in Kentucky to have theatres show captioned films. Then Kim spoke out about how she would like to have captioned films shown at her neighborhood cinema. At my request Kim posted the letter she wrote to the theatre manager. I vowed to do the same. But I also wanted to thank the theatre in my area (30 minute drive away) that offers captions and ask for more show times.

Then I got started writing my series on making online education accessible and the letters to the theatres slid to the back burner. Until today when I showed up at my local hearing loss support group meeting. It was an event that I had legitimate excuses for missing. I would have to arrive late because my son had a basketball game scheduled. I had been ill this week and missed 1 and 1/2 days of work. I had a migraine and felt awful. Despite all this I went.

Why? Because I need support. I need interaction with others in the same situation. But most of all, because today a terrific speaker was scheduled I couldn't wait to meet. Who was it? Sheri Caveda of Fifth Freedom, a nonprofit organization dedicated to helping disability support groups learn how to make a difference in their local areas.


Lori Lakes, [me], Betty Beck, and Sheri Caveda of Fifth Freedom

Sheri and her team worked with our group to develop a mission statement and find a small project to begin making our community more accessible for the deaf and hard of hearing. Amazingly, the group consensus was to contact the theatre that offers captioned films and request more showings. Our plan of action is to write individual letters which will emphasize our different requests (some group members want PG/PG-13 movies not just R rated films offered; I want to see the captioned films sooner; others want weekend showings.) We will submit our letters to Sheri and her team for their feedback, send a copy to our group leader, mail our revised letters, and report back to our group leader when they've been mailed. We have a timeline for the project and accountability to each other to follow through in what we've promised.

Next our group leader will contact the theatre manager to open up a negotiation for increased showings. If that meeting is unsuccessful, Sherri has additional steps we can take as a group.

As this project unfolds, I'll keep you updated on our progress. And post my own letter, cross my heart.

Was this Library Insensitive to Deaf Needs?

Update 3/2014: Some links that were available when this blog post was first published are no longer valid and have been removed. 

Karen of Deaf Mom Shares Her World was denied access to a close captioned video yesterday at the Naperville Public Library.
You can read the full story here.

The problem for Karen was that her daughter needed to watch a performance of A Christmas Carol for a school assignment. The rest of her class was going to a theatre to see the play live. Unfortunately the theatre was unable to provide an interpreter so Karen's daughter received permission to stay home and view a close captioned video recording of the story. Karen went over to the library where she regularly checks out nonfiction videos to get a copy of the Christmas classic.

And the library had one in their collection. And it was available. But not for Karen.

All because it was classified as a Fiction Video.

You see the problem for the librarian who helped her locate the video was that Karen wasn't entitled to the video according to library policy because her taxes are paid to another library. Here is the reciprocal borrowing policy as stated on their website:

Update 3/2014: This policy was in effect at time of posting by Speak Up Librarian. For current policy, please check with the Naperville Public Library.

A Reciprocal Borrower is one who uses a library card from a reciprocating library to check out materials at Naperville Public Library. As a REGISTERED reciprocal borrower you may check out most materials and use the online Library catalog. REGISTERED reciprocal borrowers will have the same rights and responsibilities as Naperville card holders with these few exceptions (Your home library may provide these services.):

Cannot borrow Adult fiction videos and DVD's
Cannot borrow Adult audio books
Cannot place Holds.
Cannot use Interlibrary loan Services.
No access to Online Databases remotely; you can use them in-house.
Cannot reserve computers in computer labs.

For full service at Naperville Public Library, a card may be purchased for an annual fee, giving the borrower full access to all services.

A Reciprocal borrower who has paid an annual fee of $100 is entitled to unlimited checkouts of:

Adult fiction videos and DVD's
Adult and children's talking books.

Update 3/2014: This policy was in effect at time of posting by Speak Up Librarian. For current policy, please check with the American Library Association.

Interestingly enough the American Library Association has this quote about their Library Services for People with Disabilities Policy approved in 2001. "Libraries play a catalytic role in the lives of people with disabilities by facilitating their full participation in society. This new policy will help libraries improve services for people with disabilities in their communities."

This policy specifically mentions the deaf and hard of hearing. You can read a copy of the policy here.
On page 7 of the policy under a section entitled "Open dialogue with participants" the question is posted Are there instances where the library should make special accommodations for users? [emphasis mine]

So you may be thinking why didn't Karen just go to her home library for the video. They didn't have it. The librarian found that out for her with a phone call.

Obviously in my opinion, knowing that Karen's library didn't have the video and that it was needed for school, the librarian should have made an exception to the policy to accomodate Karen's daughter's need for closed captioning. At the very least, the librarian should have offered to let Karen's daughter view the video at the library at a mutually convenient time.

What happened instead? Karen was given two choices: Fork over $100 to receive full access or Call a friend who lives in Naperville to come out in the cold and check it out for you. Which would you have chosen? Neither option was acceptable to Karen.

In this situation, a librarian chose to follow the RULES and missed her chance to be sensitive to the needs of her community. I'm saddened by it. But I hope that writing about it on my blog will help raise awareness of how well intentioned rules can be used to deny access.

***UPDATES
January 16, 2009: In the comment section, Kay posted the link to DCMP the Described and Captioned Media Project http://www.dcmp.org/. This free service is a federal project that provides described videos for the blind and captioned videos to the deaf. Note: to qualify for the service you need to be a K-12 student who is blind, visually impaired, deaf, hard of hearing, or deaf-blind. Teachers of these students also qualify. Thank you, Kay!

January 6, 2009: In the comments section, you will find a reply from Julie Rothenfluh, the Deputy Director of the Naperville Public Library. She states that Karen was offered more choices than the two I mentioned here (which I got from Karen's original post.)

Blogger Bill Cresswell has suggested this resource for subtitled DVDs: http://dvd-subtitles.com/ Thanks, Bill!

Another blogger has posted on this situation. Scrooged by Library Rules

Reading the Silver Screen

The night before Thanksgiving I went to see an open captioned showing of Changeling with my friend Diane. When I purchased my ticket, the teenaged ticket seller said apologetically, "It's not a problem is it that it's open captioned?" "No," I replied emphatically, "that's why I'm here!"

Have you seen the trailer for this film? It's based on a true story of a mother whose son disappeared and when the Los Angeles police reunited her with him months later claimed the boy wasn't her son. Was she telling the truth or was she delusional? A captioned trailer is available on Bill Cresswell's blog. I don't want to give any of the plot away but I will tell you there's a real tough part that neither Diane nor I were expecting. Don't bring your children but don't miss it either!

For those unfamiliar with open captions, the words of the script are projected onto the movie screen. For this film they were printed in white letters which were sometimes difficult to distinguish against light backgrounds. This was my second time to attend an open captioned film. The first film I saw at this theatre was Elizabeth, the Golden Age. I especially wanted the captions for that movie because I knew it would be full of dialogue and accents. Unfortunately, I have to be selective in the films I choose as the theatre is not close by and only offers open captioning on weeknights.

I was really interested in what Diane's reaction was to the open captions as it was her first time viewing them. She told me she liked them! She thought they helped her and she doesn't have a hearing loss!

Seeing Changeling was a great start to my Thanksgiving weekend. Once the film was over, I couldn't wait to see my son and give thanks that we had never endured such an ordeal. I was also thankful to spend time with family (in person and by phone) feeling truly grateful that I'm not alone in this world the way Angelina Jolie's character was.

Hope all of you reading this had a wonderful Thanksgiving holiday with family and friends and for my international readers hope you had a blessed weekend as well.

My Night of Accessible Theatre

Me and Marsha with the theatre entrance seen in the background

Last weekend was my big night out in Chicago with friends I had made through my local hearing loss support group. Julie, Kitty, and I met that afternoon at our group leader Kim's home, and the three of us squeezed into the backseat for a wild drive downtown. Kim's husband is an experienced city driver and can weave in and out of traffic with the best of them. We arrived safely and in record time!

Kim and her husband are season ticket holders while this was the first time for Julie, Kitty, and me. At the theatre they introduced us to two options for captioning. One was to read the words projected on the wall. For this play, they were shown on the wall to our left which meant turning your head back and forth between the action on stage and the script off stage right. The second option was using a portable small screen closed captioning device and lining it up as close as possible to the line of sight with the stage. Julie and I took one of these and positioned it between our seats. Kitty sat somewhere else.

Of the two options, I preferred the writing on the wall. As annoying as it was to have to turn my head, I couldn't stop reading the play! I kept telling myself the volume was loud enough that I could just watch the action on stage but I found myself watching the words nonetheless. It was just so much easier than having to listen and figure out what was said! I didn't like reading the much smaller print on the portable device and its brightness level also bothered me. On the other hand, Julie preferred this captioning option so I was glad we had given it a try.

Along with the script, the captioning included descriptions of the music and sound effects even giving clues to the emotional tenor of the action. Eurydice, the play showing that afternoon, was a modern retelling of the ancient Greek myth of Orpheus' descent into Hades to retrieve his dead wife. The play's staging was minimal and there were only seven actors so the music and effects were important to conveying the ideas of the play. What I liked best was how the play portrayed the Greek idea of the underworld as a peaceful place of forgetfulness and sleep.

Not everyone liked the play. Some said it was just weird. Actually the best part of the evening was when we ate dinner at a small restaurant across the street. Our group of five met up with about nine others from the Chicago ALDA (Association for Late Deafened Adults) group. We made one long table by pushing several small tables together. To communicate we used several strategies including lipreading, fingerspelling/signing, repeating, and writing on a pad of paper. It was just like ALDA's motto "whatever works"!

For me it was very inspiring to meet others with the same or even greater communication challenges who are enjoying full social lives and remaining employed. Everyone was very welcoming to Julie, Kitty, and me and hugs were freely exchanged at the end of the evening. I hope to socialize with them again soon.

Something to Look Forward to: An Evening of Accessible Theatre

I'm so excited! My new friend Julie and I are going to a closed captioned theatre performance of Eurydice at Victory Gardens Theatre, Chicago next month.


I've been a theatre buff all my life. My parents took me to community theatre productions when I was a kid. Linda, my best friend from library school, and I once went to Stratford, Canada for their Shakespeare Festival. That weekend we saw three plays: The Gondoliers, Amadeus, and A Comedy of Errors. We were part of a tour group so I prepared by reading all the scripts in advance and finding out what the critics had to say. I wanted to be able to discuss the plays intelligently with the others on the long bus ride to Canada. Linda and I really enjoyed ourselves on that trip! Before my son was born, my husband and I used to attend a dinner theatre where you could enjoy a great meal and then watch a play or musical afterwards. Sadly, that theatre closed. Two years ago, to celebrate both of us turning the big four-oh, Linda and I drove down to Indianapolis to see Underneath the Lintel, a one man play about a librarian who travels the globe to solve a mystery.

That memorable event was about six months before I was diagnosed with hearing loss. Since then, I haven't been to a play. I considered going to one with a church group, but I hesitated wondering if I would enjoy it or simply find it tiring trying to follow the dialogue. I let that opportunity pass by. Now I'm excited that I will be able to enjoy a play the same way I enjoy a film -using captions.

Through the Victory Gardens Access Project this theatre offers productions that are accessible in three different ways.

There is sign language interpretation for ASL users.

There is closed captioning for the hearing impaired like me.

For the blind there is audio description.

I'll be sure to tell you all about our evening come November. For another blogger's experience with captioned opera, read Kim's recent post.