[Nfbmo] Intern's efforts broaden access to vital historic documents

[Gary Wunder]

I think it should go into the Braille Monitor. Thank you for sending it.



-----Original Message-----
From: Nfbmo [mailto:nfbmo-bounces at nfbnet.org] On Behalf Of Julie McGinnity
Sent: Tuesday, January 22, 2013 9:51 PM
To: NFB of Missouri Mailing List
Subject: [Nfbmo] Intern's efforts broaden access to vital historic documents

Hi everyone,  This is an article I read about my friend Sierra Gregg, who
was a national scholarship winner in 2012.  I thought this article was
pretty good, and the work she has done is so interesting and impressive.

Intern's efforts broaden access to vital historic documents

Doug Moore


Sierra Gregg was excited about her internship at the Office of Presidential
Libraries in Washington. Her task in the summer of 2011 was to help beef up
the office's social media presence on sites such as Facebook and Twitter.

As the 21st anniversary of the Americans with Disabilities Act was
approaching, Gregg, a student at Truman State University, began looking for
records to feature, but found only two, neither of which was a copy of the
law that changed the way those with disabilities are treated in the U.S. And
neither was in a format that would allow software or reading equipment used
by those visually impaired to be of use.

"I was shocked and kind of mad, I guess, because of all the events I'd been
covering and researching, this was the one I was looking forward to the
most," said, Gregg, 21, who grew up in the small St. Louis County community
of Oakland, near Kirkwood. "So I mentioned this to my supervisor that I
wanted more ADA records to be digitized. And we came up with the idea to
create a Web page to feature these records."

Gregg's passion for making more documents accessible to those with
disabilities is understandable. She was born with a rare birth defect that
left her legally blind.

On July 26, the 22nd anniversary of the signing of the ADA, the National
Archives launched Gregg's new Web page, which contains 56 newly digitized
documents. The records include letters Helen Keller wrote to President
Herbert Hoover and a letter written in Braille by a 13-year-old boy to
President Dwight D. Eisenhower.

The Americans With Disabilities Act was signed into law by President George
H.W. Bush in 1990, a year before Gregg was born.

"I have grown up in a world where my visual impairment is not a hindrance to
my success, only a characteristic of who I am," said Gregg, who went to
Ursuline Academy and is now working on a computer science degree at Truman
State.

Jeannie Chen, social media coordinator for the Office of Presidential
Libraries, a part of the National Archives and Records Administration, said
Gregg's passion brought to light the shortage of documents readily
accessible.

"We had hoped to find more of those records already scanned and online,"
Chen said. "Sierra helped us realize this was an area where we could serve
more people."

PRESIDENTIAL GEMS

Gregg began looking through the websites for the 13 presidential libraries.
Documents already online were not always in a format that could be
manipulated to be read more clearly.

So the office, with the help of other summer interns, began transcribing
them so they could be digitally formatted. Doing so allows the text to be
greatly magnified online for the visually impaired.

The records Gregg helped collect for the site, archives.gov, go beyond the
ADA. For example, there are documents from the administration of Franklin D.
Roosevelt, who had polio and started what is now the March of Dimes.
President Jimmy Carter and his wife, Rosalynn, elevated awareness of mental
health care. And President John F. Kennedy's sister, Eunice Kennedy Shriver,
was the driving force behind the creation of the Special Olympics.

"This was a great project because it broadened the types of records we have.
Sierra worked on making things more accessible in general," Chen said.

The site explains the highlighted documents this way: "From personal letters
to historic legislation, these records provide insight into efforts over the
past century to establish programs and to protect the rights of people with
disabilities."

Gregg's efforts were noted on The White House Blog, where she detailed her
internships during the summers of 2011 and 2012. Susan K. Donius, director
of the Office of Presidential Libraries, introduced Gregg's blog entry,
saying the college student "recognizes the importance of sharing
presidential records related to disability history. She has been closely
involved in a project to make a selection of these documents accessible to a
wide audience."

In the blog post, Gregg said at least one record from every presidential
administration since Hoover is included on the site, including her favorite,
a letter from a sixth-grade boy to Eisenhower in 1956, offering advice for
his re-election campaign.

"Dear Ike," the letter from John Beaulieu, a student at a Massachusetts
school for the blind, begins. "I decided to write you a little speech which
might help you to win the election."

Little, it was.

"Vote for me. I will help you out. I will lower the prices and also your tax
bill. I also will help the Negroes, so that they may go to school."

Eisenhower, who won re-election, replied to Beaulieu: "Dear John: It was
nice of you to send me a little speech to help win the election.
... I wish I were able to write back to you in Braille also, but I am sure
that one of your teachers will be happy to read this to you."

In her blog post, Gregg also noted that two letters written to President
Hoover by Keller are among the documents on the site. Gregg said Keller
wrote letters to eight U.S. presidents, starting in 1903 with Theodore
Roosevelt, and met with 13 presidents, from Grover Cleveland to Lyndon B.
Johnson.

"I must admit to feeling a twinge of envy when I learned that during a visit
to the White House, she investigated her historic surroundings with touch.
She even identified a bust of George Washington with her fingers," Gregg
said of Keller.

CULTURE SHOCK

John Thompson, president of Lighthouse for the Blind-St. Louis, which
provides various services to the visually impaired, said Gregg's efforts are
impressive, especially given her personality.

"I remember when I first met her, timid is putting it mildly," said
Thompson. Gregg went through Lighthouse's three-week residential program for
teens stressing independence, including communication and social skills.

"There is a tendency for so many kids who are visually impaired to not go
out to get the experiences that sighted kids get," Thompson said.
"As they go through adolescence, they tend to become an island into
themselves."

Gregg said she recalled getting an email accepting applications for the
internship and thought it would fit nicely with her plans to go to graduate
school for a library science degree.

But she admits Washington was culture shock for her. Her commute to work
included crowded buses and trains. Using public transportation is something
encouraged in the Lighthouse program Gregg participated in.

Had she not gone through the program, "I would never have made it in D.C.,"
Gregg said. Lighthouse also provided scholarships to help with her housing
costs in Washington.

As Gregg works to complete her studies with an eye on library management,
Chen says she is glad the young woman from St. Louis spent two summers in
Washington.

"She brought such a strong interest," Chen said. As a result, "we were able
to create a really wonderful resource at the agency that will end up being
valuable to the general public."

Link to article:
http://www.stltoday.com/news/local/education/intern-s-efforts-broaden-access
-to-vital-historic-documents/article_1879a78e-fbc3-5b04-9711-95660351b414.ht
ml




--
Julie McG
National Association of Guide dog Users board member,  National Federation
of the Blind performing arts division secretary, Missouri Association of
Guide dog Users President, and Guiding Eyes for the Blind graduate 2008 "For
God so loved the world that he gave his only Son, so that everyone who
believes in him may not perish but may have eternal life."
John 3:16

_______________________________________________
Nfbmo mailing list
Nfbmo at nfbnet.org
http://nfbnet.org/mailman/listinfo/nfbmo_nfbnet.org
To unsubscribe, change your list options or get your account info for Nfbmo:
http://nfbnet.org/mailman/options/nfbmo_nfbnet.org/gwunder%40earthlink.net