CURRENT POSITION Youth Services Librarian, Maryland State Library for the Blind and Print Disabled DEGREE MS, Instructional Technology School Library Media, Towson State University, 2008 FAST FACT Myles started college planning to become a computer programmer, but her love of teaching led her into education. Photo by Michael A. Foley

Innovative Inclusivity

LaShawn Myles had not worked specifically with the disability community when she joined the Maryland State Library for the Blind and Print Disabled in 2018. Her work as an educator led her to libraries, where she quickly became a champion for visually impaired patrons, advocating for resources and finding ways to make materials more accessible.

From exploring the depths of the ocean with an inflatable “Whalemobile” that her patrons could touch to making the vastness of outer space accessible through an audio podcast, Myles creatively renders concepts and topics tangible. When NASA launched the NASA@ My Library program, Myles immediately saw an opportunity for her youth patrons. However, many elements of the NASA kits were inaccessible to people with low vision. So she created an “Accessible Addendum”—an additional tote that traveled with NASA’s kit, supplementing the original materials with tactile braille overlays, useful apps, and websites that provide a physical representation of visual concepts.

Myles then duplicated Maryland’s two NASA Facilitation Kits for a total of eight, adding necessary materials so all copies would be accessible for the blind or those with low vision; co-led a “road show” teaching library staff how to use them; and fostered a traveling collection of kits available to any Maryland public library. These efforts resulted in fully accessible kits and trained librarians who could work with them, successfully producing an ongoing collection housed at the state library.

“I had to keep trying,” she says. “I had to be that problem solver because I wanted to help. I wanted to be the ally for the community around me.”

Myles’s inclusive approach extends beyond those with visual impairments and low vision to address broader aspects of diversity, equity, inclusion, and accessibility. She leads the Maryland Inclusion and Accessibility Community of Practice, a statewide group of public and school library staff who work to broaden awareness of inclusivity, share best practices, and discuss institutional obstacles. Myles facilitates training and presentations from subject matter experts, and launched a virtual statewide study group around the “Project Enable” curriculum, a six-module course focusing on enhancing librarians’ capacity to meet the needs of patrons with disabilities and, through Institute of Museum and Library Services grant funding, designed and organized an additional Project Enable Speaker Series.

For Myles, an open mindset helps to open possibilities for herself and others: “The more I move forward, the more I see more opportunities,” she says.