Fitzwilliam College Olisa Library: Accessibility Information (3/2019)

Location: https://www.fitz.cam.ac.uk/about/visiting-fitzwilliam

1. Library office hours and contact

The Olisa Library and IT Centre is open 24/7.

*Due to COVID-19 restrictions, at present the Olisa Library is open from 9.30am until midnight, seven days a week.*

Library staff are available from 9am-5pm on weekdays.
Librarian Ms Christine Roberts Lewis: librarian@fitz.cam.ac.uk 
Library Assistant Mrs Tracey Piggott: library@fitz.cam.ac.uk

If you need assistance or would like the library to provide adaptive items, just come for a chat and the library staff will be more than happy to help. If there is something that you use in your own space and you would like the library to provide a similar item, please get in contact.
Library staff do not always automatically receive your Student Support Document (SSD), so if you want to make the staff aware of what is in your SSD, you can forward it to them with a summary of what adjustments you will need.

2. Doors

The main entrance doors are powered, just swipe your card on the access point on the left hand side.
All doors leading into a library room require a College card to be tapped on a sensor near the door to enter. The main entrance doors will open automatically when you approach them.

3. Level access

There is level access to all floors via a lift: basement (computer rooms, study room and toilets), ground floor (study room and book room), first floor (study room and book room) and second floor (book room).
In case of evacuation, there is an evacuation chair by the stairs on the second floor, which can transport a non-ambulant person down to the evacuation point in the basement.

4. Checking books out

The check out desk is low enough to use from wheelchair height.
You need to be able to scan your card and set down/ pick up your books from the desk, which has a sensor in it that automatically detects your items.
Library staff are happy to fetch and check out books for you during their working hours.

5. Types of desk

On all floors there are standard height desks, with a mixture of individual study spaces (one table per person with sockets and ethernet ports), study spaces with computers (two per floor, one at either end of the study area), larger tables and adjustable desks (see below).
In the basement, the computer room has Windows/ Linux computers and Macs on non-height adjustable tables.
Library staff are happy to reserve desks for individuals and to put notices on the adjustable desks reserving them for mobility-impaired students more generally (exact wording yet to be decided, input welcome).

Ground floor
●    One full size desk with electrically powered table-top, height adjustable within a large range, and allows you to choose anywhere between low seated and tall standing up workspace. In south east corner of main room.
1st floor
●    Three desks with winding wheel at right hand edge, height adjustable within a medium range to allow for students who need a lower or higher than average table height.
2nd floor
●    A full-size desk with electrically powered table-top, height adjustable within a large range, and allows you to choose anywhere between low seated and tall standing up workspace. In south east corner of main room.
●    One wooden Eiger sit/stand desk – a portable item which converts an ordinary height desk to a standing desk for your laptop. In north corner of main room.
●    One architect desk, adjustable at a slope. To adjust, lift up the surface towards you incrementally. To fold it back down, lift all the way up first and then fold down. In an alcove in the north end of main room by the door. The alcove has its own light switch.

6. Chairs

Just under 50% of all the chairs provided in study rooms and main library rooms are height adjustable with 5-star glide feet for safety. All of the chairs in the computer suites are fully adjustable operator chairs – these are the only chairs on wheels.
There is slight padding on the chairs, however you are welcome to bring cushions if required or use the small adaptive items available (point 8).
Library staff are happy for chairs to be moved if the desk you need does not have your preferred kind of seating.

7. Lighting

The lighting in the library is person sensitive and environmentally friendly.
Most of the lighting in the library is set at a certain constant level and will come automatically as you move through the space.
If you sit still for a long period of time the light above you may go out, but there are several lights on each floor which do not go out, and so you won’t ever be left completely in the dark. Just wave your arm and your light should come on again.
The desk lights on the individual study spaces and the long row on the top floor are on timers and so will need switching on again hourly.
12 additional desk lamps are provided so those who want more controllable lights can be more comfortable (see point 8).

8. Small adaptive items

Small, easy to move items are kept on the shelves. They should not be removed from the Library.

On the left as you enter each book room:
We currently have eight bookstands but will purchase more if there is need. There are 12 desk lamps available.

On trolley in entrance hall:
Two laptop supports (Brada from Ikea), two highly adjustable Easydesks
We also have a selection of back support cushions which may be taken to wherever you choose to study in the library.

Beanbags are provided on the 1st floor for lounging and footstools are available from the front desk for those who need to elevate their feet.

9. Toilets

There are non-accessible binary gendered toilets in the basement. There is an all gender, left hand transfer accessible toilet in the basement. There is a right hand transfer accessible toilet on the 2nd floor in the north corner of the book room, which opens using a Radar key (use your own key or borrow from the front desk).
To discuss: whether there can be a JCR fund for loaning students a Radar key, which is available online for approximately £2.

10. Printing

We have three printers in the Library (two in the basement lobby and one on the 1st floor) which also scan and photocopy. Use your College card to log in to your printing account.

11. Layout by subject

Information on which subjects are on which floors is available in a text-selectable PDF.