Library Services to People with Special Needs would like to alert you to the following free opportunity:

Russian State Library for Young Adults (RSLYA) is pleased to invite you to participate in the International Seminar “Inclusive Library Programmes for Users with Autism Spectrum Disorders (ASD): Practices and Potential Development”, which will be held on April 1, 2021 and dedicated to the World Autism Awareness Day (internationally recognized every year on 2 April).

The following issues are proposed for discussion within the seminar:

– Communication and behaviour features of users with ASD

– Difficulties and special cases in working with visitors with ASD in libraries and other cultural institutions

– Concept of “accessible environment” and how to create it in a library for users with ASD

– What can libraries do to support socialization and integration of people with ASD into society

– Methods and approaches in implementing inclusive programmes for users with ASD in a library

– Large-scale international and Russian projects in libraries which help to find solution to autism problems

– Trends and potential development of inclusive programmes in libraries aimed at solving the problems of people with ASD

We invite library specialists, special educators, psychologists, representatives of non-profit organizations, coordinators of inclusive programmes in cultural institutions and everyone who works in the field of solving problems of autism in cultural institutions to participate in the seminar. We are looking forward to any submissions, especially cases of services and activities for teens and young adults with ASD.

The seminar will be held in person with the option of remote participation for colleagues from other cities and countries. Live stream of the event will be available on the RSLYA official website and social media.

Interpretation from/into English is provided. Speakers from other cities and countries can join the event online or do a pre-recorded talk.  

Please send your topic and abstract (up to 300 words), name, position, affiliation, email address, online or pre-recorded participation to the seminar’s coordinators Maria Alekseeva http://alekseeva@rgub.ru and Yulia Naumova http://naumova.yulia@rgub.ru by February 25, 2021.

Please feel free to distribute this invitation to those who might be interested.

We look forward to receiving your submissions soon.

 

Sincerely,

Organizing Committee
Russian State Library for Young Adults
Moscow, Russia

About us

Russian State Library for Young Adults (RSLYA) is the largest dedicated young adult library and one of the eight federal-level libraries in Russia (https://rgub.ru/en/). Our library has been working with young people with special needs for more than 10 years. It is essential part of our activities and programmes for our users. Our library ensures the availability of physical space and friendly atmosphere, provides services in accordance with preferences and needs of young users with special needs (https://rgub.ru/en/library/equal.php).

One of the latest cases – in December 2020 our library with the partners hosted the Festival of Inclusive Online Events “Friendly Library” (https://rgub.ru/friendly/). Its main aim was to tell the society as much as possible about the life of people with special needs, to create a space for their active participation, to introduce successful young people who have achieved their goal and to inspire and motivate their peers. Ten online events of the fest have got about 249000 views on various social media platforms.

Now we have a new idea, a new initiative – we would like to be more involved in the process of providing library services for users with autism spectrum disorders (ASD). We know it is a topical issue for libraries and other cultural institutions in many countries, many of them provide amazing inclusive services for people with ASD, there are lot’s of successful cases to share. In Russia, this process has just started, but there are already some wonderful initiatives as well. That is why our library decided to arrange this international seminar as an environment for library specialists, special educators, psychologists and coordinators of inclusive programmes in cultural institutions from different countries to discuss and share their experience in working with users with ASD.