N E W S N O T E S

Tom Green County Holds Successful Library Card Program

Over 3,500 students in San Angelo have become new library card holders thanks to a month-long drive led by a coalition of library, school, business, and government leaders. State Representative Rob Junell, Tom Green County Librarian Larry Justiss, and County Judge Mike Brown were the prinicipal sponsors of the effort that also picked up the support of a number of San Angelo businesses including Town and Country Food Stores, Golden Corral, McDonald's, Chic-Fil-A, and San Angelo Pizza Factory. The businesses provided incentive coupons for free food and drink for kids who applied for cards.

Area schools supported the campaign by distri-buting information, encouraging students to apply for cards, and holding incentive and awards programs in classes.

Representative Junell held a press conference at the Tom Green County Library in October to announce the results of the program. During the September drive, 3,529 cards were issued to elementary students, bringing the total number of students with cards to 12,250, or about 73 percent of the area's students. The drive increased the library's registration by 66 percent.

"Anything we can do to increase awareness and knowledge of the world is our goal," said County Judge Mike Brown.

"We've got to compete for these kids' minds with a whole world of things that already have their attention like television and video games," said Representative Junell.

Representative Junell also attended and spoke at the annual meeting of TLA District 1 on October 10, where district members presented him a plaque in honor of his efforts on behalf of the Tom Green County Library Card Campaign. Representa-tive Junell is chair of the House Appropriations Committee.

This article is based on a report in the San Angelo Standard Times.

State Library Staff Rally to Win Web Contest

Kathleen Krause and Sue Polanka, consultants in the Library Development Division of the Texas State Library and Archives Commission, took first place in the Stock Car Division of the AIR-Austin Accessibility Internet Rally. The Rally, the first of its kind, was a team-based web site design competition involving non-profit organizations (NPOs) and volunteer teams from the Austin high tech community.

The fun and politely competitive event was designed to assist the NPOs in creating a web site accessible to people with disabilities. Sites had to be accessible to people with visual, hearing, and mobility impairments. The teams came together on September 12th and had only eight hours to create their accessible
web sites.

Krause and Polanka were teamed up with Access Austin Arts (AAA), an organization that makes cultural arts in Austin accessible to people with disabilities. Audley Blackburn, a board member from AAA who is blind, was a great help to the Cybrarians during the competition. His speakable browser, pwWebSpeak, allowed the team to listen to their web site and fix detailed accessibility problems.

The Cybrarians– the only librarians in the competition– competed in the Stock Car Division of the rally. The web sites in this category were to be less than one megabyte and could not contain any "whizbang" technology such as CGI, Java, or ASP. The competition for the Cybrarians included Thought Interactive, Lone Star Internet, Bazzirk, Inc. and Bipolar Productions, all high tech companies in Austin.

As Krause and Polanka discovered, designing a web site that includes people using assistive technologies was very simple! Here are some of the strategies they used in creating their accessible web site:

• Download an adaptive browser for the visually impaired such as pwWebSpeak. (http://www. prodworks.com/productsindex. htm#pwwebspeak). pwWebSpeak works with a Soundblaster compatible sound card, and a speech synthesizer, such as Microsoft Speech API, to translate web page information into speech.
• Keep all navigational links (home, forward page, back page) at the bottom of each page, not the top. Putting them at the top causes speakable browsers to read the same information at the top of each web page, a frustrating repetitive feature for visually impaired persons.
• When using abbreviations such as TLA, separate them with periods or blank spaces. If not, the browser attempts to read the abbreviation as a word.
• All graphics must include alternate text descriptions for the visually impaired.
• All sound clips must include alternate text descriptions for the hearing impaired.
• Avoid using framed pages and tables with lots of columns. These cause speakable browsers to stumble on the formatting of a web page. If tables are used, be sure to provide text for cell headings. If frames are used, provide an option for linear browsing.
• Use contrasting colors, between text and backgrounds, and try to avoid using both red and green in the same area for users who are color blind.
• Avoid image mapping or creating hot spots in graphics. Someone with limited hand movement may not be able to move the mouse into the small parts of a graphic. With image mapping, be sure to provide alternate text for separate parts of the image.
• If you plan to use an uncommon font on your web page such as comic sans or tahoma, set up a style sheet with a default font such as times new roman or arial. Textually, the page will then be no challenge for any browser.
• Keep all graphic files under 30 kilobytes. This allows for faster download time.
• \wTest your web page using Bobby (http://www.cast.org/bobby/), a program created by the Center for Applied Special Technologies. Bobby will grade a web page, show you exactly where problems could occur for a user and exactly how to change the html for each problem.
  

  District 8 Hosts Legislative Reception

District 8 members hosted the 1998 Legislative Reception October 1 at the Bellaire Civic Center. Almost 200 library supporters welcomed political candidates and aides to the social forum. Governor George W. Bush and Congressman Ken Bentsen sent greetings in their absence.

Quality social time was followed by the political point of the day. Program moderator Peggy Morrow– speaker, author, and training consultant– welcomed guests and introduced TLA officials. Ms. Morrow then outlined library-related issues to be addressed by participants in timed responses.

Mary Alford, director of the Bellaire public library, served as reception chair. Despite slight disappointment in the number of legislators and candidates that turned out, Mary remains upbeat in her summation: "Every effort that brings people together to talk and exchange ideas on library issues is a winning one."

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