Andriyanova T.V. The Quality of Service Provision by Special Libraries for the Visually Challenged in Regional Scale
DOI: https://doi.org/10.15688/lp.jvolsu.2018.3.12
Tatyana V. Andriyanova
Candidate of Sciences (Sociology), Associate Professor of Department of Sociology, Kursk State University
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Radishcheva St., 29, 305004 Kursk, Russian Federation
Abstract. The study deals with the regional scale of the quality of services provided by special libraries for the visually challenged. Satisfaction with the quality of services provided by special institutions for persons with disabilities, as exemplified by the libraries for the visually challenged, helps to understand and identify current barriers. These barriers include physical ones of the infrastructure of cultural institutions, and other types – financial, social, educational, negatively affecting the quality of services. In the context of this issue the author considers it necessary to address the legal component of the service provision to persons with disabilities by cultural institutions. The main documents starting with the Declaration of human rights (1948) emphasize the need to create a type of social inclusion of persons with disabilities in every society and that would allow them to fully realize their civil rights. In practice, every person with disabilities encounters obstacles along the way. This also applies to special libraries for the visually challenged, who having sufficient experience in this field, can only become a division of public libraries. New Model standard of public libraries charges them to serve visually challenged users. This, in turn, can have a negative impact on the quality of services provided, as public libraries do not have appropriate capabilities, technical and human resources. The relevance of measuring the quality of services of special libraries for the visually challenged is due to their high importance as a social institution with universal opportunities to meet the basic needs of the visually impaired. The results of the study suggest a high satisfaction of visitors of special libraries for the visually challenged with the quality of services, which is one of the main criteria in assessing the work of cultural institutions of this type. Reaching the conclusions on the basis of the above-stated the author points out the need to improve the methodology for measuring the quality of services provided by special libraries for the visually challenged and the possibility for further study of this issue.
Key words: the quality of services, independent evaluation of the quality of services, satisfaction with the quality, special libraries for the visually challenged, area studies.
The Quality of Service Provision by Special Libraries for the Visually Challenged in Regional Scale by Andriyanova T.V. is licensed under a Creative Commons Attribution 4.0 International License.