Every Mind Welcome

Resources and Support for Inclusive Librarianship

Welcome To The Accessible Librarian

Welcome to my blog, The Accessible Librarian. As a future librarian, my goal is to make any library where I may work as accessible to every patron who comes through the front door. In my current role I have the pleasure of working with many patrons in the library who are neurodiverse, intellectually disabled or developmentally disabled. These wonderful and interesting people bring a smile to my face on a daily basis. My goal with this blog is to provide you, the librarian, with some resources that would be of interest to this community as well as yourself, whether you currently interact with patrons who have disabilities at your library, or you hope to in the future.

Scope Note, Biographical Information, and Project Reflection

Scope Note

The Accessible Librarian blog will explore the intersection between public librarians and patrons with disabilities or who are neurodiverse, with the goal of providing tools, strategies, and resources for librarians serving this community. More than one in four 28.7%) adults in the United States have some type of disability (CDC, 2025), and over three million children (4.3% of the under-18 population) have a disability (Bureau, n.d.) and many of these people rely on the public library as a resource, many of them visiting multiple times a week, so this is a segment of our library patronage that deserves additional focus. Topics we will explore are: Foundational Information (Vocabulary, Demographics, and Other Critical Information), the Historical Perspective, Diversity, Community Barriers and Contemporary Concerns, Collection Development and Maintenance, Cataloging and Equity of Access, Programming, Intersectionality, Community Services and Resources, Intellectual Freedom, Censorship, Professional Ethics, Community Engagement and Outreach, Refugees and Immigrants, Teens, Families, and Our Elders, and Library Staff. An Annotated Bibliography and several Book Reviews will also be provided.

Biographical Information

My name is Roger Geis and I am in the MLIS program at San Jose State University, on target to obtain my degree in May 2026. When I receive my Master's in Library and Information Science this December, I hope to obtain a Teen/Young Adult/Adult Librarian role in the San Francisco Bay Area. I grew up in the Bay Area, only moving away to receive my undergraduate degree from Chico State in 1994. I was a Sales Director for various cybersecurity companies for 20+ years, until about two years ago when I decided I wanted to give that life up and pursue my passion to help people and become a librarian! I currently live in Brentwood, California (the one in Northern California, not the O.J. Brentwood in Southern California) with my girlfriend Monica. We have three fur babies - Marshawn (a seven year old French Bulldog), Brinn (a six year old Pit Bull), and Maizey (a one and a half year old Pit Mix) - they are the loves of our lives. In my spare time I enjoy reading and collecting limited edition/signed horror and fantasy novels, playing video games (when I have time - not much while in school) and camping. I hope you all enjoy my blog!

Project Reflection

This semester is my second time having Lisa as my professor, so I knew what I was getting into when I signed up for the class – a lot of work. Like really, a LOT of work. I am wrapping up my MLIS studies, so I could have gone the easy route, but I had so much fun in Lisa’s class the last time, I signed up again! Even thought I knew it would be TONS of work!

So, knowing what I signed up for, I am extremely proud of myself and my blog. This is the assignment I am most proud of in my MLIS studies. It was indeed a lot of work, but that makes its completion that much sweeter. I have learned so much about the disabled and neurodiverse community this semester, and I know I will carry this information forward with me into my career in libraries. Cultural Humility and Implicit Biases are two things that resonated deeply with me this semester – learning about these two topics have made me a better person, and the knowledge I now have drives me to ensure that I treat all patrons, as well as coworkers, with compassion, empathy, and openness. I try to enter every interaction as a blank slate, with no preconceived ideas or notions. Listen more and talk less, unless it is asking clarifying questions. Each person I interact with during the day has their own unique experience, and if I just listen, and engage them with mindfulness and openness, odds are I am going to learn something new from that interaction.

I would not have done anything different this semester while working on this blog. I learned my lesson from the last time I had a course with Lisa, and I backloaded that blog towards the end of the semester – big mistake! This semester I kept up with all pages as they were due, and overall, it made the process of creating this blog a lot more pleasurable than it was in my previous course with Lisa. So, any future students reading this for INFO 275 – do not let yourself get behind! You can do this!

I have already shared my “in-process” blog with several coworkers, as well as with some librarians I have been interviewing with for my next job. Every time I share it, I ask for constructive criticism. Just because I created this blog, by no means does that make me an expert on the disabled and/or neurodivergent communities. If I got something wrong in this blog, I want to own it, and I want to correct it, so please let me know. But my hope is that other folks in the library field might come across this blog in their Google Searches, and maybe it will help them learn something. Or maybe it will inspire them to make some changes in their library – make their library more accessible for this community. And if that is the case, this blog has done its job.

I hope you enjoy reading this blog as much as I had creating it. Best of luck to all of you on your journeys!

Picture Credits - Header and Footer courtesy of iStock. All other pictures on this page are my own personal pictures.