Announcing LAMP: Library of Accessible Media for Pennsylvanians

We are very excited to announce that the Free Library of Philadelphia and Carnegie Public Library’s Libraries for the Blind and Physically Handicapped are officially changing our name to LAMP: Library of Accessible Media for Pennsylvanians. Starting today, Pennsylvanians with print disabilities will now be able to access services under this new brand from a new central website—MyLAMP.org!

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 services that we provide. The new website 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 cannot 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.

by Keri E. Wilkins, Administrator, Free Library Library for Blind and Physically Handicapped, LAMP: Library of Accessible Media for Pennsylvanians and Mark Lee, Administrator, LAMP: Library of Accessible Media for Pennsylvanians