IDEAS Resources

Authorized by the 1973 Rehabilitation Act, as amended, the Interagency Committee on Disability Research (ICDR) was established to promote coordination and collaboration among federal departments and agencies conducting disability, independent living, and rehabilitation research programs—including programs related to assistive technology research, and research that incorporates the principles of universal design.

This is a summary of statistics on the social, political, and economic organization of the United States from various Census surveys and other federal and private sources of data. Available online back to 1878. Before 1995 is in PDFs that are not OCR'ed or in zip files. After 1995 is OCR'ed but the older of these years are not tagged.

The National Archives holds many records related to American citizens with disabilities, including 20th century letters, documents, legislation, and photographs about programs and rights for people with disabilities.

Comprehensive list of US government statistics gathered by Syracuse University.

The Disability History Museum Library has a growing collection of over 3,000 primary source documents and visual stills related to the cultural and social history of people with disabilities, covering the 1800s to the present.

Disability Studies Quarterly (DSQ) is the journal of the Society for Disability Studies (SDS). It is a multidisciplinary and international journal of interest to social scientists, scholars in the humanities, disability rights advocates, creative writers, and others concerned with the issues of people with disabilities. This is an open-access, peer-reviewed publication.

The Disability Visibility Project is an online community dedicated to creating, sharing, and amplifying disability media and culture.

Disability Voices (from the British Library) is a collection of about 600 oral history interviews with persons having a disability. Transcripts are included with the audio files. The collection may be browsed by subject or name.

It’s Our Story is a national initiative to make disability history known and accessible. The highlight of this site is the It’s Our Story video interview collection. The 1,300 closed captioned videos are interviews with disability leaders across the country who talk about social issues including, accessible housing, culture and the arts, among others.

The Museum of disABILITY History Virtual Museum is a source for historical photographs and includes online museum “wings” for medicine, society, New York State, education, advocacy, and media.

The National Center for College Students with Disabilities Clearinghouse and Resource Library includes resources about disability and higher education. The Information for Researchers and Policymakers page includes information for writing about disability and researching disability in higher education.

Rooted in Rights includes podcast interviews with transcripts and closed captioned videos, focusing on disability rights issues.

This is an article found in the scholarly repository of Grand Valley State University. The author, Rachel Kooiker, teaches English and Psychology at Spring
Lake High School.

The World Health Organization provides several closed captioned videos of people from various countries talking about disability.