New Hearing Loops Offer Improved Sound for Challenged Patrons
New equipment recently installed in the Carman Community Room, Sargent Meeting Room and Information @ LPL Desk will help enhance the hearing experience for patrons who connect the hearing loops to their hearing aids or cochlear implants equipped with a T-coil.
That's the subject of this week's community library column for the Eagle News Online/Star Review.
Reference staffers can speak into this microphone at the Information @ LPL Desk as part of the hearing loop equipment to help patrons with hearing challenges.
If you've yet to read the column, you can see it here:
A device called a hearing loop has been installed in several locations in the Liverpool Public Library with the goal of enhancing the experience of patrons with hearing challenges.
Patrons who use hearing aids or cochlear implants equipped with a T-coil can directly tune them to a frequency broadcast by the hearing loops. A transmission from the Hearing Loops will be used to enhance audio from programs and events in the Carman Community Room and Sargent Meeting Room, as well as conversations with helping staff members at the Information @ LPL Desk and Children’s Room Information Desk.
The idea to add hearing loops in the LPL came from staff members on the Inclusion Innovation team, said Interim Director Susan Reckhow.
“They were tasked with making our library a more welcoming and accessible place,” Reckhow said. “The hearing loops were something they came up with during their research and meetings.”
The hearing loops were purchased and installed with funds from a grant from the Alfred W. Richberg Fund for the LPL, as administered by the Central New York Community Foundation.
Reckhow said the Hearing Loops project could be followed up by the adoption of other concepts from the Inclusion Innovation team.
“This was the first idea, the primary goal,” she said. “We could see other enhancements, library collections and supports coming in the future.”
