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Philadelphia Library for the Blind Changes Its Name
By Alicia Waters | November 13, 2020
From: Keri E. Wilkins
Director, LAMP: Library of Accessible Media for Pennsylvanians
“We are very excited to announce that this month, the Free Library of Philadelphia’s Library for the Blind and Physically Handicapped is officially changing our name to LAMP: Library of Accessible Media for Pennsylvanians. With the assistance of our colleagues in Pittsburgh, Pennsylvanians with print disabilities will access services under this new brand from a new central website at MyLAMP.org starting in December.
This rebrand has been in development for the past two years and is the combined effort of the Free Library of Philadelphia, Carnegie Library of Pittsburgh, and the Pennsylvania Office of Commonwealth Libraries, along with guidance from our consultant Wall-to-Wall studios. The goal of this change is to make services for Pennsylvania’s growing print-disabled population more discoverable, accessible and inclusive. LAMP removes disability from our name and focuses entirely on the service. The new website at MyLAMP.org will provide a singular service
point to aggregate, grow and communicate all of Pennsylvania’s services to persons with print disabilities.
Although our name will change, our commitment to excellence will not. We will continue to implement the Library of Congress’ National Library Service program throughout the state of Pennsylvania to patrons who can not access standard print due to blindness, visual, cognitive or reading disabilities and to those who are unable to hold a book or turn its pages, as we always have. Additionally, under this new brand, we will explore ways to provide resources beyond the traditional – such as assistive technologies and accessible programs to this underserved population.
When Congress passed the Pratt Smoot act in 1931 and funding was allotted to the Library of Congress to purchase books for the blind, they looked for libraries to distribute these materials. The Free Library of Philadelphia and Carnegie Library of Pittsburgh were chosen as two of the original 19 national locations to distribute books for the blind. Pennsylvania libraries, through state funding, have a long history of pioneering innovative services to the print disabled in our state. We look forward to building on that tradition under LAMP.
Thank you for being our brand ambassadors and going forth to share this news with people in your networks who may no longer be able to access standard print and thank you for supporting this work.”
Keep up the great work Pennsylvania!
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