Accessibility

The County of Wellington strives to ensure its programmes, services and facilities are barrier-free for residents with disabilities. The County continues to support the goal of an accessible Province by 2025 through the implementation of the Accessibility for Ontarians with Disabilities Act, 2005 (AODA). View our Accessibility policy

 Facilities

All Wellington County Library branches are compliant with the County of Wellington's accessibility standards. 

  • Accessible entrances, collections, computer access, and circulation desks at all locations
  • Accessible washrooms at all locations
  • Alternate formats available upon request for County communications
  • Alternate formats for reading material when possible

 

For questions about a specific location, please contact the branch directly.

 CELA (Centre for Equitable Library Access)
 

CELA is Canada’s most comprehensive accessible reading service, providing books and other materials to Canadians with print disabilities in the formats of their choice. A national not-for-profit organization, CELA is fully funded to serve 97% of the estimated 3 million Canadians with print disabilities in partnership with member public libraries. CELA provides access to more than 650,000 professionally produced titles to provide people with print disabilities a quality library experience.

Access to the CELA collection is free for any member of the Wellington County Library with a print disability. 

 

A print disability can be a:

 

- Learning disability: An impairment relating to comprehension

- Physical disability: The inability to hold or manipulate a book

- Visual disability: Severe or total impairment of sight or the inability to focus or move one’s eyes

 

Accessing CELA through the Wellington County Library

To access CELA services a patron must register with CELA using their WCL library card (it must be in good standing).  Patrons can either self-register or have a staff member help them with the process.

 

To self-register you may visit the following: https://celalibrary.ca/self-registration

 

If you would like assistance with the registration process, please visit a branch and speak to a staff member or send an e-mail to: celaregistration@wellington.ca

 

If you have questions about your existing CELA account, please direct call the CELA help line or e-mail the CELA Help Desk.

 

Phone: 1-855-655-2273 - CELA Contact Centre hours: Monday to Friday, 8:00 am to 7:30 pm (EST). Email: help@celalibrary.ca

 DAISY Readers
 

Wellington County Library now has four Victor Stratus DAISY readers and a circulating collection of DAISY discs available for checkout. They are available for a standard three week loan period.

 

DAISY readers are designed for people with vision impairments. The DAISY Format is digital book format that is designed to be a complete audio substitute for print material and is specifically designed for use by people with print disabilities, including blindness, impaired vision, and dyslexia. Based on the MP3 and XML formats, the DAISY format has advanced navigation features in addition to those of a traditional audio book. Information encoded on DAISY discs can only be played on DAISY readers because of the special format. Our collection of DAISY discs comes from CELA – the Centre for Equitable Library Access.  We currently have 100 titles. The titles are all popular adult fiction and nonfiction. Each title is on a single disc.  One of the benefits of DAISY discs is that whole audio books can fit on a single disc.  These discs will not play on standard CD or DVD players or on computers.   

 

There is an excellent youtube video explaining how to use our DAISY readers here: https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=jKsK2jq46mw

 

You can place holds on DAISY Readers and Discs in the online catalogue or call your library branch to help you.

 Accessible Computers
 Our public computers can be accessed by any patron. Computer workstations are wheelchair accessible and some computers are equipped with Zoomtext keyboards and software. For help accessing our public computers, please speak to staff at your local branch.
Accessible Reading Material
 

Large Print books have a larger font size and more white space, perfect for readers who find regular print difficult to read. Both adult fiction and nonfiction is available in large print at Wellington County Library.

 

Search for Large Print books here.

 

An audiobook is a recording of a book being read aloud by a narrator.  We have digital audiobooks available for download through OverDrive or the Libby app and audiobooks on CD available from all our branches. These CDs can be played in any CD player. Fiction audiobooks are available for all ages, including children, teen and adults and nonfiction audiobooks are available for adults.

 

eAudio Collection in OverDrive

 

Search for Audiobook CDs here.

 

A playaway is a small battery powered device with one audiobook stored on it. You simply attach earphones, press play and listen to your audiobook at home or on the go. Playaways are available for all ages, including children, teens and adults.

 

Search for Playaways here.

 Magnifying Sheets
 All library branches have magnifying sheets available for use upon request.

© 2023 County of Wellington, 74 Woolwich St. Guelph, Ontario N1H 3T9, T 519.837.2600, TF 1.800.663.0750, F 519.837.1909