<P> Australian librarian Karen McQuigg states that "even ten years ago, when I was involved in a project looking at what public libraries could offer the deaf, it seemed as if the gap between the requirements of this group and what public libraries could offer was too great for public libraries to be able to serve them effectively ." There was a dearth of information for or about the Deaf community available in libraries across the nation and around the globe . </P> <P> New guidelines from library organizations such as International Federation of Library Associations and Institutions (IFLA) and the ALA were written in order to help libraries make their information more accessible to people with disabilities, and in some cases, specifically the Deaf community . IFLA's Guidelines for Library Services to Deaf People is one such set of guidelines, and it was published to inform libraries of the services that should be provided for Deaf patrons . Most of the guidelines pertain to ensuring that Deaf patrons have equal access to all available library services . Other guidelines include training library staff to provide services for the Deaf community, availability of text telephones or TTYs not only to assist patrons with reference questions but also for making outside calls, using the most recent technology in order to communicate more effectively with Deaf patrons, including closed captioning services for any television services, and developing a collection that would interest the members of the Deaf community . </P> <P> Over the years, library services have begun to evolve in order to accommodate the needs and desires of local Deaf communities . At the Queens Borough Public Library (QBPL) in New York, the staff implemented new and innovative ideas in order to involve the community and library staff with the Deaf people in their community . The QBPL hired a deaf librarian, Lori Stambler, to train the library staff about Deaf culture, to teach sign language classes for family members and people who are involved with deaf people, and to teach literacy classes for Deaf patrons . In working with the library, Stambler was able to help the community reach out to its deaf neighbors, and helped other deaf people become more active in their outside community . </P> <P> The library at Gallaudet University, the only Deaf liberal arts university in the United States, was founded in 1876 . The library's collection has grown from a small number of reference books to the world's largest collection of deaf - related materials with over 234,000 books and thousands of other materials in different formats . The collection is so large that the library had to create a hybrid classification system based on the Dewey Decimal Classification System in order to make cataloging and location within the library much easier for both library staff and users . The library also houses the university's archives, which holds some of the oldest deaf - related books and documents in the world . </P>

When did the term deaf culture becomes popular