Fredericksburg, Virginia, January 31, 2022 - Central Rappahannock Regional Library has partnered with the
Library of Virginia to launch the
Virginia Deaf Culture Digital Library, or
VA DCDL (
deaflibva.org). This resource is the result of a two-year collaboration between CRRL
Access Services Librarian Babak Zarin and the Library of Virginia.
Zarin had been contacted in 2019 by ReBecca Bennett, who at the time was serving as the Deaf and Hard of Hearing Outreach Coordinator at the disAbility Resource Center in Fredericksburg. She felt that the local community could benefit from a Deaf Culture Digital Library similar to one in Maryland and wanted to know whether the local library system would be interested in starting one.
Zarin brought the idea of addressing this unmet need to the Library of Virginia’s Director of Library Development and Networking, Nan Carmack, and, after a two-year development period, the VA DCDL was launched.
“Deaf culture digital libraries allow for vital community resources and Deaf culture to be shared with relative ease, and can help foster greater connection between public libraries and members of the Deaf and hard of hearing community,” said Zarin. “I continue to be surprised at how often this particular community gets overlooked in library services. As a
2019 article in Forbes magazine noted, ASL (American Sign Language) is currently the third-most commonly studied language in colleges and universities and the third-most frequently requested language for court interpretation.”
Here are some of the things Virginia’s Deaf Culture Digital Library offers:
- Resources and information related to Deaf culture
- A collection of Deaf resources in digital format
- Access to information regardless of location
- Assistance for Virginia residents, for library staff in the local public library systems, for academic librarians in colleges and universities, and for staff in other Virginia libraries.
The VA DCDL invites the collaboration of Virginia’s Deaf community through feedback, referrals to additional resources, and submissions of Deaf culture events across the Commonwealth, with lengthier conversations and meetings for those interested currently planned to begin in 2022. For more information about VA DCDL, please contact Babak Zarin at
babak.zarin@crrl.org or Nan Carmack at
nan.carmack@lva.virginia.gov.
Virginia’s Deaf Culture Digital Library is made possible by funding from the
Institute of Museum and Library Services and was created within the context of a federally funded Library Science and Technology Act project that provides a user-friendly web development platform to Virginia libraries that need extra support.
