Wellcome Library
This is a co-design partnership with Wellcome Collection to help make the Wellcome Library and Collection more accessible for everyone, especially learning disabled and autistic people. Together, our aim is to see and hear more disabled and learning disabled people in libraries and archives, so we’re working together to make a lasting change.
What do we mean by co-design?
Co-design is when people design things together right from the start, equally. This is different from one group of people asking others to give feedback on a design, or to give their ideas to feed into a design. In co-design power is shared and trust is created.
We are exploring:
Making it easier to understand what the library is and how to use it
Making the library more welcoming and inviting for a range of different people (who might not otherwise go there)
Making the library more comfortable for different people to use
Understanding what is in the collection and how people with learning disabilities and autistic people are represented
Seeing and hearing things made by learning disabled people in the library.
We started last year by building trust between the co-design team of Wellcome Library facilitators and the Heart n Soul team using creative approaches. We have been learning about the library, how it currently works and what the Wellcome team are hoping to change.
We have co-developed potential designs for the library space such as an Information Station and a Stuff Station to help make visiting the library better for everyone. We have visited and been inspired by the Wellcome archive - where the Heart n Soul archive also lives. This year we hope to see at least one of our new designs in place.
Heart n Soul first started working with Wellcome in 2018. They commissioned our project, Heart n Soul at the Hub, a two year research project funded by Wellcome’s Hub Award. It brought a group of very different people together to do research in new and exciting ways.
