New library not visually impaired friendly!

Several users have already been injured at the building, which features electronic doors that can suddenly shut in your face, uneven floors, confusing artwork, and hazardous lighting at foot level.

Pitfalls and simply dangerous obstacles greet blind or visually-impaired visitors to the NLB in the new annex at the National Library of Norway in Oslo. As one approaches the area there are unmarked steps of varying height on the right. On the left side are raised lights built into the floor, which the visually impaired can quickly trip over.

"The library is one of the places most often visited by the blind. But the building is less suited for the visually impaired than most others," said Svere Fuglerud, policy adviser at the Norwegian Federation for the Blind (NBF).

Fuglerud took Aftenposten's evening edition on a tour of the library. The first stop requires a witness to yell out a warning that the door is heading for him.

The entrance doors can only be opened with a switch on a wall behind the door, not easily found even for those with 20-20 vision. The doors then open outwards, and while the visually impaired are occupied with the switch they can easily get the door right in the face.
"There are no sensors that detect someone standing at the door. People can be caught easily," Fuglerud said. "It's incredibly heavy. The worst type of door I have ever seen."

After passing two doors, surprise obstacle number two: art inlaid into the floor that easily confuses the visually impaired.

"The visually impaired think that these are functional and are something that should be followed. But the artwork leads you out again," Fuglerud said.

The presence of the artwork prevents the customary use of guide lines on the floor, and so a line of light is used instead.

"Everyone must know that the blind won't have much use for that," said NBF consultant Hege Henrichsen.
All of the entering doors and walls at the library are made of glass. Henrichsen points out that the visually impaired will walk right into these, and library manager Arne Kyrkjebø adds that so far two fully sighted employees and a bicycle courier have also walked into the glass - though no one has been injured yet.

"The courier had a helmet, so he was OK. It's worse for the elderly," Kyrkjebø said.
Architect Gro Eileraas is stung by the criticism from the NBF, and said that she thought a good dialogue had been in place and that they were satisfied. She said that the problems were all noted and that improvement were underway, and that everything should be fixed within a few weeks.

Eileraas said that the annex was originally planned as an office building, and that changes had to be made once they knew the library was moving in.

"The decision about the NLB moving in was taken when the structure was ready. So we have had very little time but have striven to meet their needs. We think it is regrettable and unfair, the criticism we are getting now," Eileraas said.