Let's Talk Disability

Let's Talk Disability - Accessibility in our Digital World

Host: Professor Jackie Carter
Guest: Professor Christopher Pressler
Guest: Rachel Heyes

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Hello, my name is Jackie Carter. I'm the EDI Disability Academic Lead at the University of Manchester and I've set up a series of in-conversation pieces called Let's Talk Disability.

The reason for this is that I want people who have a disability and who work and study at the University of Manchester to have opportunity to share what their lived experience, their everyday experience is with somebody in a position of influence, a senior leader at the University. So each episode will feature two guests and each of those guests will have a conversation about what it means to have a disability at the University of Manchester and at the end of the conversation each will commit to one action, we're calling them one things where they will take away something from the conversation that they've had and do something with it. I hope you enjoy listening and we'll make of course the transcripts available for everybody. Thankyou.

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[MUSIC]

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Hello everybody. This is Jackie Carter on episode seven of the Let's Talk Disability series. And I have with me today two guests who I'm going to ask to introduce themselves to you in a minute in this lovely podcasting studio at the University of Manchester. And both myself and one of my guests are wearing our bright green yellow sunflower lanyards, which I know will feature large in the conversation today. So I'm going to hand over first, please, to you, Rachel.

Rachel, could you start by introducing yourselves to the listeners, say a little bit about who you are and why you're here?

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RACHEL: Of course. So my name's Rachel Heyes. My pronouns are she, her and hers. I have multiple disabilities, most of which are invisible or hidden. I'm happy to share what a few of those are because I think that it's nice for some people who perhaps have these conditions as well to be able to recognise and see them in someone like myself. So I have Hashimoto's disease, which is an autoimmune condition that gives you an underactive thyroid gland.

I have hypermobility, Ehlers-Danlos syndrome, which affects my joints and my digestion and things like that. I have fibromyalgia, which gives me chronic pain and chronic fatigue. And I also have complex PTSD, which gives me a lot anxiety. So yeah, these disabilities sort of affect how I move or don't move my body, how I walk, how far I can walk. They affect how I use everyday items and do everyday things, but mostly I'm constantly fatigued and in pain. I'm also self-diagnosed as neurodivergent. I'm pretty sure that I have autism and perhaps ADHD. But for the University of Manchester, what I do is I'm a Learning Technologist within the Faculty of Biology, Medicine and Health. I mainly support the medical programmes eLearning website, OneMedLearn, but I also volunteer as a co-chair for the disabled staff network.

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JACKIE: Thank you very much, Rachel. Am I allowed to add that you're a two-time nominee for upcoming awards for your disability advocacy? So huge personal thanks from me for everything you do in this space, which is so important. Thank you. And now, Chris, if I can hand over to you.

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CHRIS: Yeah, sure. Thank you. So I'm Professor Chris Pressler. I'm the University Librarian and also Director of the John Rylands Library, both of which are part of the University of Manchester, but they're slightly different job titles. I've been really looking forward to this conversation with Rachel and Jackie, and let's see what comes out of it.

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JACKIE: Brilliant. Thank you very much. So as you both know, and as previous listeners know, the purpose of these conversations is to raise awareness of the lived experience of living with a disability. As a member of staff or a student at the University of Manchester. And today's episode, you know, will give us something different, perhaps that we haven't talked about before.

One of the things that we want to do at the end of these individual episodes is to move to action. OK, so it's great to talk, but we really need to move to action because as a disability confident leader, the University of Manchester needs to ensure that we're creating a disability inclusive environment for all our staff and students and alumni. So Rachel, with that in mind, maybe I can move to you to start the conversation, please.

0:04:45.000 - 0:06:06.420
RACHEL: Yes, I think one of the main things is obviously being able to work as a person with multiple disabilities is really important. And the fact that I can work flexibly, I have a flexible working agreement and can work from home most of the time is just a complete lifeline. I think without it, I probably wouldn't be able to work. And if you can't work as a disabled person, you're just completely excluded and isolated. And it's that sense of belonging. I mean, I can only work part-time. And that's somewhat of a challenge as well, because I think the way that I am is I do the equivalent of a full time work, but just over four days and then use that fifth day to rest. But yeah, I mean, without flexible learning, working even, I wouldn't be here.

But one of the other difficult things is the rigid working patterns that are set down. I mean, it's not too bad within the university, but it generally still is that sort of working Monday to Friday, nine till five. And it just doesn't usually work for people with disabilities. The days are too long, too much is expected. And I don't know if you've ever heard of this thing called the spoon theory?

0:06:06.420 - 0:06:07.720
CHRIS: No.

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RACHEL: So the spoon theory...

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CHRIS: Or not that I'm aware of.

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RACHEL: [laughter] Yeah, you might ring some bells, is this theory that a lot of
disabled or chronically ill people use, where you have a certain amount of spoons and you spend those spoons on doing things like having a wash or cooking your food or walking to work. And so the theory is you have, say, 20 spoons to start each day, but people with disabilities, they have less spoons to start the day and it costs more spoons to do things. So we're constantly in like a deficit, if you will.

So anything that makes our life easier is really what's key. Things like pacing and rest breaks are really important for people with disabilities because we tend to sort of spend the evenings and the weekends really just recovering from work if we do work. And I think sometimes I get excluded because there's this emphasis on people to do things face to face. And I just don't have the spoons to be able to do that, which obviously I'm really sad about because I get excluded. And I sort of don't have that sense of belonging sometimes. But I think we can change that. I think we can make things much more accessible. You know, we've proven that we can do it throughout the coronavirus pandemic. Oh, there it is, I said the word.

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CHRIS: Quite a lot of good things come out of that though.

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RACHEL: Yeah, this whole thing came out of it where it showed it gave us a place and it showed that we could contribute to society and contribute to the university and do things.

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JACKIE: So I'm going to invite you to respond to that, Chris, but maybe just for the listeners because it's an important distinction that listeners are aware of here.

My guests this week are both professional services member of staff. So actually what you said has a different resonance to academic staff perhaps who have more flexibility in terms of delivery of their duties under their role. And then one of the things it would be really helpful to have your views on actually, Chris, is those customer facing, client facing roles as opposed to those roles, perhaps more like Rachel and some of her staff, which can be done remotely in terms of the tasks. So, you know, in terms of what you've heard and in terms of your leadership role at the University for the Library space, what's your reflection?

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CHRIS: Well, there's a couple of things there. I mean, firstly, obviously, Rachel, you're not a member of the library team, but I'll take on board everything you're saying about your own working practice and what might be improved there. And as a member of PSLT, we take collective responsibility for 6,000 people in PS. I think we're bigger than the Welsh government. So, you know, it's really important for any of us to hear your lived experience like that. And hopefully things have improved up to a point.

There's a couple of reflections personally I might throw in here. One is post -COVID, which is for, I moved to Manchester in January this year, but I've been in this job for five years. So, I used to live in Cambridge. Before that, for nearly 10 years, I was commuting between Cambridge and Dublin. So, this is the first time in almost two decades that I've lived in the same city that I work in. And for me, people post-COVID have sort of caught up with what I was doing anyway, which is desperately trying to have some kind of hybrid life, not 9 to 5 and not Monday to Friday. So, it's really interesting to see how that there's, you know, we're all sort of developing and learning in those terms. The second thing, which I was thinking about whether to share or not, as you would understand, as a person with disabilities, you choose whether to do this or not.

One of the reasons why I'm so passionate about our Green Lanyard, Sunflower Lanyard scheme is I wouldn't describe myself as disabled, but I have been in that situation for many, many years. In 2011, I suffered a very severe illness called Miller-Fisher Syndrome, which is a variation of Guillain-Barre, which put me out of work for almost two years. I couldn't see for six months, and I had to learn how to walk after eight months. And for at least a decade, I've been living with the kind of things you're talking about in terms of massive levels of fatigue, which is very difficult for people to grasp unless you've had it of any kind, driven by any kind of illness, and also huge levels of pain and difficulty controlling temperature and things like that, which is really, really difficult, particularly if you're in an environment with other people.

So I've had the experience of not being able to get on planes, not being able to get on trains, even going up one step impossible, and on top of that, nobody could see any of it physically in me. So I'm extremely sensitive to what you're saying.

I would describe myself as relatively fit now, but it's taken, as I say, since 2011 to even get to that point. So I constantly look at buildings, spaces, meetings, the sense of community, some of the physical stuff, some of the infrastructural stuff, but also some of the things that are less easy to measure, relationships, team ethos, in a sense of, is it working for everybody as much as it can do?

And I think that's very much my starting point with my own position of leadership. It's probably worth reflecting, as Jackie will have had in all these sessions, I guess. Manchester is massive, no matter what way you look at it. The library is no exception to that. We're the third largest in the country after Oxford and Cambridge. We're operating on almost 20 sites, hundreds of staff, tens of millions budget, more than 10 million items in the collection. It's a very big thing, plus we're hitting almost 50,000 students and dealing with enormous numbers of external users as well. So when I say I'm looking at every building, thinking about every person, that I see as my main purpose in my role, as well as providing a strategic lead in terms of being the senior librarian for the university. I would see myself as hopefully a genuine empath in terms of everyone's experience of being at the university. And we do talk a lot about students, and we do talk a lot about undergrads. They always say we need to do more because we always do, but we do talk about those parts of our community more than we do about staff, perhaps even more so with PS staff actually, and more than we do with PGRs in particular. So I'm really super focused on those parts of our institution, which are also, because it's Manchester, huge numbers of people with massively diverse needs and requirements. So everything that you've said to me resonates from a professional perspective and up to a point, I have to say, from a personal perspective as well.

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JACKIE: Thank you so much for sharing that. That is really great to hear, have on record, you know, that senior leaders in our institution are willing to share their motivations for why this space matters, but also their own personal experience. I really appreciate you sharing that. I'm wondering then if we can maybe bring this back to you, if we focus on your role in the library, but as being part of the leadership team, PSLT, the Professional Services Leadership Team, right? And then Rachel, your role in terms of e-learning provision and thinking about, you know, where they intersect.

So we've got two great people. We don't just want to talk about all the challenges. We want to talk about the amazing things we can do and the strengths that we bring.

Rachel, one of the things you didn't even mention was you co-chair the Disabled Staff Network. So you're very conscious, very aware of the challenges that people have, but also the incredible strengths that disabled people bring to this organisation.

So where is the intersect? Where can we take this conversation forward in terms of e-learning, library, disability inclusion?

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RACHEL: I guess we both do a lot of sort of training, whether that be online or face-to-face training and support for doing things like creating online learning or that sort of space where I know that the Humanities e-learning team have done some really good work around training people on how to write alternative text for images. And that's something that I think, you know, with your really good example of leadership and getting involved and looking for, is this accessible? How can we make this more accessible? Because if we make things more accessible, everybody wins, not just people with disabilities, but also, you know, people with caring responsibilities, people with logistical difficulties, like you said, commuting from Cambridge to Dublin. I can't even imagine doing something like that for you.

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CHRIS: That's a lot of Ryanair flights.

0:15:35.280 - 0:16:06.400
RACHEL: Yeah, but I've met people too, people too. And so obviously, if we make things accessible, then we can, they're accessible by design, they're accessible to everyone and we all win. Yeah, I think working in that space where I'm always wanting to make whatever I create or co-create or what I support the academics to create is accessible. So it always has that alt text. It always has captions and the transcripts always correct with the videos.

0:16:06.400 - 0:16:13.360
CHRIS: Could you talk a little bit, Rachel, about what you'd say on a module? What would your role be within a course delivery?

0:16:13.360 - 0:16:54.120
RACHEL: It's quite varied, but essentially because the medical programme uses the bespoke it's essentially a website, then I help the academics and sometimes their clinicians, they work for the NHS, so they don't always work for us. So they need a lot more support because they're off doing their busy doctoring jobs to actually create the content. So I might just take what they've written in a word document and basically bring it to life. So make sure it's got interactive questions, might build those interactive questions, using images, videos, et cetera, and make sure it's constructed in an accessible way.

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CHRIS: Would you say that you've got enough support in terms of, there's a lot of contemporary best practice around delivery of images online. In fact, in the library, we're really quite focused on this to the point of being quite passionate about it actually in terms of accessibility. Like most libraries, we see ourselves quite vocationally for everybody and we definitely have, I would say this, but one of the best sort of microsites of the university in terms of best practice for accessibility, we still have significant issues because we're using third party suppliers for a lot of our digital imaging services. But because we're so big, we actually have quite a lot of clout with those suppliers, particularly around special collections, some of the lovely things that come out of the John Rylands, for instance. So we're working very closely with those suppliers. We will also, no doubt, our own eLearning teams will be working within faculties and you may come across some of those before, but there may be some further join up even following this meeting, if you want to call it a meeting. It's a meeting of minds.

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RACHEL: Yeah, it's a meeting of minds, definitely,

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and that we could look into that in more depth. It's very difficult in a university this size to be consistent, to put it mildly. But the library's in a great position to operate across three faculties. So we can see where there is best practice, where there might be areas that could be improved, and areas that we can learn, and maybe areas where the library is slightly ahead in some cases. So we might come back to that.

0:18:30.840 - 0:20:08.364
RACHEL: Yeah, absolutely. I've definitely referred staff to some of the library content, especially the training on copyright. That's excellent, although that's not directly related to accessibility. One thing that I did do is I started an accessibility working group, and I invited people from across the whole university to basically come together and say what they were doing in this space, and I'm sure I've met some people from the library within that group. And another area that have been really helpful to us is the design team, because obviously they do the university website, so they have to make sure that they're legally compliant with accessibility laws as well as best practice.

So we're definitely trying to more actively share best practice in these areas, and also signpost people to where they can learn more. Because one thing that I'm passionate about is that this work is moved away from disabled people, and that other people do the work, because that's what's really important, that it's not always on a disabled person to say, hey, this video doesn't have a transcript, please can you provide a transcript, or hey, this event doesn't list any accessibility, it doesn't tell me what start time the session is, what size the room is, what size the chairs are, etc. There's so much in it. So we're really trying to obviously encourage people to do equality impact assessments. That's one of the key ways in which people can sit down and have a look and it can be something as simple as a regular meeting that they have, are they making that meeting accessible to everyone?

0:20:08.364 - 0:20:20.240
JACKIE: Yeah, you do have some amazing people in the library, some of whom we've met through the accessibility working group, and some of whom I work with through my own work, obviously Jenny is a phenomenon in terms of what she's doing.

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CHRIS: A force of nature

0:20:20.240 - 0:21:32.353
JACKIE: So you've really, both of you made me think now, so I'm sitting here in my role as EDI academic lead disability at the University of Manchester, tremendously ambitious to ensure that Manchester is known to be a disability inclusive university, inclusive by design, as we say, Rachel. And at the moment, that's probably known internally in some quarters, but it certainly isn't known externally, I don't think yet. And I wonder if one of the things we could take away from this conversation is to put disability inclusion in terms of content that's delivered through the library, firmly on the radar at the university, with a view to then becoming that, you talked about multiplicity of best practice, but you know, the place, the place, the university in the UK, in the Russell Group sector that is getting it right, okay? And learning as we go and working collectively and not putting all the onus on the people who describe themselves as disabled. And I think there might be a piece of work that's arisen from this that I haven't thought about before. Maybe that's already there in process, I don't know, Chris, if it is, tell me, but otherwise I think there's something very exciting we could take away from this.

0:21:32.353 - 0:23:45.973
CHRIS: Well, I don't know the detail, Jackie, but I'd be surprised if our teams didn't already have that ambition and/or weren't already doing it. So I'll definitely go back to the ranch, as we'd say, and just check on that. But knowing the ethos of the library, I'd be very surprised if we weren't already, at least in library land, as you might call it, if we weren't already seen as thinking ahead of the curve to whatever degree. One thing that I would be pretty confident about saying is we will have the capacity to make that change happen. Manchester can be a very demanding place to work. But I'm not one of those people that says we don't have enough to do it. We actually do have enough to do it. I've worked in smaller institutions who make an awful lot happen with a lot less than we have here.

And I think we need to be quite confident, not complacent in any way, or, you know, nobody likes a booster. But Manchester is a well-resourced institution. And most of our points of failure aren't because of a lack of capacity, they're a lack of join up. And I would say that generally across the institution, I've said it in PSLT, so it's no surprise to people there, that we could always think about doing things better. The one thing that I have noticed since being here for sort of five, five and a half years now is, and this is the best university out of all the universities I've worked for, by some way, in terms of just openness, go get it attitude, we're not getting everything right. But one of the things I have noticed is a really shared belief in the importance and the value of this institution by most of the people who work here. And it comes out in every staff survey, even the ones that are more challenging to the institution, the rates for are you happy to be here? Are you proud to work here? Pretty high. And that's something which we sort of say, well, that's great, but we don't make enough of, I think. So I think that that inner drive to make Manchester great, as you were saying, Jackie, strategically is something that we need to capture right down to individual job levels.

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JACKIE: I agree. I agree. We get on and do it, don't we, Manchester? We just get on and do it.

0:23:50.985 - 0:23:56.200
CHRIS: I think practically the whole city does, as far as I can see. It's not just the university, but the university is a great sort of definer of this city, it seems to me.

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JACKIE: We're a city of radical history, aren't we, as well?

0:24:01.320 - 0:24:02.703
CHRIS: Absolutely.

0:24:02.703 - 0:25:09.700
JACKIE: I wonder then if we can maybe, I'm thinking about sort of coming to the end of this conversation and maybe think about taking that as a starting point and thinking about focusing, you talked about deficit narratives. You know, we often hear when we talk about disability, that it's a left behind protected characteristic and it's not talked about enough. And, you know, some of the other protected characteristics get talked about more. But what we're hearing throughout these conversations is that there's this tremendous drive and passion and enthusiasm and commitment to change things, to make the world more available to everybody. What was the phrase you used? If it's working for everyone as much as it can do, okay?

Yeah. Which is sort of the starting point. Given that, Rachel, and I'm looking at you because I think about the tremendous work you were doing. I know it costs you personally in terms of your energy levels, but the amazing work you're doing for challenging what we need to change and how we need to change it, but sharing the load. Okay. What is there that perhaps we could do more to achieve what we've just been talking about in terms of, you know, being the best?

0:25:09.700 - 0:27:33.480
RACHEL: Yeah. I think we are very lucky and I know I'm very, you know, happy, for want of a better word, that I work for the University of Manchester. I'm really proud because the institution enables me to do these amazing things. We have a disabled staff network and I'm allowed to go and speak to all these people about my lived experience. It's absolutely wonderful. I think, yeah, joining things together is definitely a challenge. Simply just it's the logistics of the size of the organisation and getting down into those smaller pockets of programmes or schools or departments that perhaps haven't heard these messages. That's something I'm really keen to do and hopefully that's something we'll be able to do through. We're hoping to do more promotion for the hidden disability scheme, the sunflower scheme, and to get that information out to people who don't know what it is, because it's super important that people re aware that people who wear the green sunflower lanyard are people with hidden disabilities and that they might require more support. And I know that that's kind of can be really scary for people who are not disabled or people who don't have any experience. They say, well, I don't know what to do and, you know, that's okay because guess what? Disabled people don't know what to do either.

It's super scary for us all. You know, we wake up one day, we've got these disabilities, we don't know how to get pip, get a blue badge, get a wheelchair. We don't always know what reasonable adjustments we need, but just to have that awareness and to know that there are people who can support you in your learning journey, you know, learning about these things, teach yourself about these things.

There's so many free resources from some amazing organisations like Hidden Disabilities. That website will tell you all about that scheme and how it works. Within the university, the EDI team provide training like Disability Equality. Everything's on Blackboard. So staff can enrol themselves and complete that training and just, you know, ask your colleagues or ask people, are there any reasonable adjustments that you need? Is there a way in which I can make this more accessible to you? And then really listening to what they say.

0:27:33.480 - 0:28:50.280
JACKIE: Yeah, so I would say from, I would take from that that it's about having the conversation in the open in a trusted environment where your colleagues are willing to listen. And I know that is happening in the library. And one of the reasons we're so pleased to have you on today is that the library has been one of the parts of the institution that has embraced the Sunflower Lanyard Scheme and is doing incredible things with it. So the project that Rachel was just talking about, the library are involved with that because we want to learn from what they've done, but we want to spread that good practice across the university and make it more acceptable for people to be able to talk about their needs, right? It's that simple. If you have a need, you should be able to talk about it in that need. Legally, you know, it needs to be satisfied, but also from the position of a university that cares about social responsibility and everything, we need to ensure that people are getting what they need to do their job. So the strengths of the library as a part of the organization are something, is something that I feel really proud of and grateful for because the library has already taken a leadership role in this, Chris. And again, you know, you may not know the details, but you know that the library is embracing this and presumably that's from your leadership as well.

0:28:50.280 - 0:31:40.640
CHRIS: Well, it's everyone else's work, of course, but a lot of it, the ethos, I guess, comes from myself and my senior team, who would all be saying the same things as me. I can absolutely guarantee. And I mean, we know that there's some facts about the library. We're the busiest buildings on campus. We're the only 24/7 buildings open to students. You know, we have a responsibility. We're operating with the occasionally UCL just about managed to overtake us, but we're back being the biggest physical institution by student numbers. So we're dealing with a scale of demand and a level of personalization, which is completely new as well. And I think we're getting quite a lot of it right. I think from our perspective, from my perspective, let's say, I would be surprised if individual students aren't having a great time in the library and they're meeting brilliant staff, particularly on the front desks, particularly our customer services team are incredible and heroic is probably the word I would use, actually.

And we're so we're saying even with the learning commons in the main library, we're seeing upwards of 13,000 student visits a day. And even mid-sized universities, Bath, Reading, Leicester get that a month. So you can see the scale at Manchester, the demand at Manchester is absolutely enormous. And most of those students are having a great experience.

The strategic questions for me are the main library is was extended when the student population at Manchester reached 17,000. So if we just dwell on that for a second. We've extended across campus, but the main library as a place for students to come to hasn't been extended since the late 80s, early 80s. And I think that shows in the building, certainly in a more contemporary, more understanding environment around particularly hidden disabilities, but any disabilities, that building is struggling to serve students in a way that it should be in 2024.

I started this this talk saying I literally go around the buildings looking at it and remembering what it was like not to be able to step onto a train at Cambridge to go to London. And it doesn't feel very, you know, it comes back like that. I even have days when it still happens. So, you know, I can feel what it must be like to try and get around that monolithic place. And we're really, we're really serious about, about improving that, not just at the individual level, but at the strategic level from the university.

0:31:40.640 - 0:32:09.720
JACKIE: That's brilliant. And I'm hearing inclusion baked into any future plans, which is fantastic. So we've come to the end of our sort of a lot of time slot. I'm sure we could talk for much longer. And I think we probably will talk beyond this conversation because I've already got a question and a proposition for you, Chris, for next year. But let's move to the end. And at the end of these conversations, I ask each of my guests to ask the other a question that will commit them to an action. So, Rachel, would you like to go first?

0:32:09.720 - 0:32:48.400
RACHEL: Yeah, I mean, it's been really wonderful to hear how passionate you are about advocating for disabled people. And that's just my one thing that I really hope that you keep doing that, keep advocating, keep for people with disabilities, keep being the voice in the room and calling out ableism, being the active bystander. Because for a lot of us, you know, ableism is when people just become apathetic or indifferent to disability discrimination. So really just keep seeking out that information and training. Yeah.

0:32:48.400 - 0:32:51.786
JACKIE: Do you have a specific question or is it just a plea to keep?

0:32:51.786 - 0:33:11.383
RACHEL: Yeah, just, I mean, it sounds like there's Chris is doing some great stuff and just to keep doing that really, nothing specific. I mean, it's just so fantastic that I know that the libraries are one place where you can go and get the sunflower lanyard if you need one. I know the library staff have had that training, so I know I'm safe in that space.

0:33:11.383 - 0:33:12.263
CHRIS: Yes.

0:33:12.263 - 0:33:14.830
RACHEL: You know, Esther Miller's done some really wonderful work there.

0:33:14.830 - 0:33:29.160
JACKIE: Thanks, Rachel. I mean, I'm going to, if I may, just piggyback on that comment by asking you, Chris, if there's anything that you will do as a consequence of having had this conversation with Rachel today?

0:33:29.160 - 0:36:03.120
CHRIS: Yeah, I mean, you can tell that I'm all over this, to use that phrase. I mean, I've had that experience of not being able to go upstairs for almost a year. You know, I know what it's like. I'm not saying I know permanently what it's like, but I knew for a long time. And for more than a decade, it was extremely difficult to do things like that. And I'd had a good employer-ish. Things could have been better, and I'm always trying to make things better. So there's also, as I've referenced before, there's a genuine vocational sense from library staff. Most of us have had the same training, for one thing, and we're really passionate about that, not just about the content and the information that we manage, but about the services that we give. In fact, probably the other way around, that's the most important thing for us. And I think, you know, when you come into the library, when students come in, they can feel that there's a difference between a library and a non-library learning space where we aren't there. And the difference is the staff. There is a big difference between the main library experience for students and MECD, for instance, at the moment. And you can see what it is. There's nobody wearing this. He says, for the camera, waving one of the library purple jackets.

So from this conversation, I would be really refocusing, I think, on something that I've become a bit known about, and it's a delicate one, this, on discussions around EDI, internally to the library, but within PSLT and more widely around the university.

EDI can become dominated by questions of race. And I'm just saying that out loud because I've been in so many meetings where that's happened. So it's been minuted. And I have become a bit known for challenging that and remembering that there's a disability and access aspect to the EDI agenda to the university, which is equally important. And I just think it's better to just say things rather than euphemistically say, oh, could we please remember? Because it just disappears, and it doesn't get minuted, and it needs to be clear. So I need to constantly remind myself to be super clear about the importance of the disability agenda for all of us, in addition to all the other EDI agendas.

0:36:03.120 - 0:36:16.020
JACKIE: Thank you for stating that so clearly. I couldn't agree more. And you'll not be surprised to hear me say that I'm also the person who has a voice in the room for disability. And then, Chris, your final question to Rachel, please.

0:36:16.020 - 0:37:17.860
CHRIS: Okay. I mean, it's been really super to meet you. And my question would be just check to see if there's any other ways that you could become from the e-learning perspective, that there's further ways, practically speaking, that you and your team could perhaps join up even more with our team. That's a PS question. We're always looking for things. Patrick would be the first to say agile working across professional services. So there's that aspect to it, but perhaps on the personal level. I was really struck by what you said at the start, Rachel, in terms of potential isolation being the flip side to hybrid working benefits. And we're really interested in that in the library, we have staff who would say exactly the same thing. And we've been working through that ourselves. So contact me directly, or there are colleagues who I can put you in touch with, just to think about there may be some benefits, further benefits to work in what we, I guess we all agree is a great university in the end.

0:37:17.860 - 0:37:50.720
JACKIE: Oh, that's fantastic. That's a wonderful place to stop. I know we all want to say more, but from the perspective of sort of keeping these to around about half an hour, I think we've had time. Thank you both of you so very, very much today. It was a conversation that I wasn't sure how it was going to unfold. I can already see it's resulted in a fruitful connection that I think will take places. Rachel, my mind's buzzing at a million miles an hour, and I'm sure yours is in terms of the things that you and I have talked about. So huge thank you from me for being on this episode seven of Let's Talk Disability. Thanks.