USING ADAPTIVE TECHNOLOGY TO PROVIDE ACCESS TO BLIND, LOW-VISION, ANDDYSLEXIC PATRONS

With the advent of adaptive technology such as speech synthesizers and screen access software, legal researchers with vision impairments hav e equal access to most legal research tools. As so much legal research material is available full-text online, legal research is a particula rly rich area for using adaptive technology. This article introduces s everal major types of adaptive technology, including speech synthesize rs, magnification systems, and optical character recognition systems. The authors discuss factors to consider in selecting among the technol ogy, and even whether a library is required to provide any adaptive te chnology at all. Finally, the authors reflect on how offering such tec hnology both raises expectations and requires greater coordination wit hin the law school and the university.