Laura is Deaf and visually impaired. She spends a lot of time studying alone in the main library, in town.
At first she felt unsafe there because there was no way of her knowing if the fire alarm went off or when the alarm sounded at closing time. She campaigned on this issue. The campaign was successful and the library has a Deaf Alerter system.
When she arrives at the library she collects a pager from the information desk. If the fire or closing alarm goes off, the pager vibrates to alert her. So now she feels safe there.
How did she organise her campaign?
First, Laura asked a librarian who she should speak to about facilities in the library for deaf people. She was told to speak to the manager. He told Laura that they could not do anything about the alarm.
Laura wasn’t sure who had the power to review the situation. She knew the library was run by the local authority but wasn’t sure if the manager had sufficient power or whether a more senior manager or councillors would need to be involved too. She phoned the town hall, via Typetalk, to ask.
She was told that the manager of the library only had the authority to make decisions involving small sums of money but that if it involved a larger amount of money the council would need to be involved and that the council could influence the manager. She was also told the name of the councillor with responsibility for library services.
Laura wrote to the library manager asking him to review his decision and look at the possibility of providing a Deaf Alerter. He replied saying that the issue of evacuating disabled people from the library had been looked at a year ago and they had made all necessary changes. He would not look at the issue again. So Laura decided to take the matter further.
Laura asked for the minutes of the meeting where the issue of evacuating the library had been discussed. She found that nobody had mentioned alerting deaf people to the alarm. The discussion had focused only on evacuating wheelchair users.
Laura wrote to the councillor with responsibility for library services, Councillor White, asking if she could meet with her to discuss the issue. Laura felt that she could explain herself better face-to-face.
Councillor White refused to meet Laura. Laura felt disappointed and frustrated. Her friend suggested that Laura contact her own local councillor, Councillor Blake, to ask him to raise the issue with Councillor White. He replied, saying that he was keen to help and asking Laura for a meeting.
At the meeting Laura explained the issue in more detail. Councillor Blake confirmed that the most important person to influence was the councillor with responsibility for library services, Councillor White. He said that he would contact her and ask her to take notice and to meet with Laura.
He also suggested to Laura that the argument that seemed strongest to herself, about the safety of deaf people in the library, was not the strongest to the council. The council would be more interested in the argument that it would prevent deaf people accidentally being locked in the library and causing false burglar alarm calls, for which the council had to pay the call out charge.
This made Laura think about deliberately getting herself locked in the library. She thought this would make her point, as well as attracting publicity. She decided that it was too confrontational for that stage but that she would bear it in mind for later, if the campaign was getting nowhere.
After Councillor Blake spoke to Councillor White, Councillor White agreed to the meeting and, after Laura reminded her of her duties under the Disability Discrimination Act, she provided a BSL/English interpreter. In the meeting, Councillor White was sympathetic to Laura’s request. Councillor White agreed to raise the issue at the next council meeting.
Afterwards, Laura wrote to thank Councillor White for her time and her promise to raise the issue. She also said that she would be attending the council meeting to find out what was said. Laura hoped this would encourage Councillor White to keep her promise.
Laura felt that the campaign needed more people involved, to put more pressure on the decision-makers. She thought that publicising the campaign might be expensive, with copying posters etc but when she explained that she only wanted a few copies of the poster and what it was for, her local post office let her copy them free of charge.
She spoke to other local Deaf people, put a poster up in the local Deaf club, made an announcement at an event for deaf people and put a short advert about the campaign on a local news website.
She asked people to write to or speak with the library manager and councillors to request that they raise and review the issue of alerting deaf people to the fire alarm in the library. She also asked people to speak to the librarians and ask them to support the campaign and to encourage the manager to take the issue forward.
Laura also wrote a letter to the editor of the local newspaper to tell people about the campaign and ask people to lobby the council for a Deaf Alerter to be installed in the library. Her letter was published in full and a few days later, the paper published a letter from a fire-fighter supporting the campaign.
Laura asked for an interpreter for the council meeting. Initially they refused but when Laura emailed the council’s disability access officer he said that he would arrange it. At the council meeting the Deaf Alerter issue was discussed. They agreed to look into the cost of the system and to make a final decision at the next meeting.
Laura wrote to both Councillor White and Councillor Blake to thank them for raising the issue and urging them to push for the system to be installed. She also encouraged other people to write to councillors again, urging them to decide in favour of the system. At the following council meeting, the system was approved.
Laura and some of the other campaign supporters wrote to councillors to thank them. Laura also wrote another letter to the editor of the local newspaper to publicly thank the council for their decision.
When nothing had happened in six months’ time, Laura wrote to the library manager to ask him why there was a delay and urging him to press ahead with this as soon as he could. Two months later, the system was installed.
Laura wrote to thank the manager and Councillor White. She also put a notice up in the local Deaf club telling people about the new system and she made a special point of telling all the librarians how pleased she was that they had the system.
