Library Accessibility Resources – Writing, Art, & Advocacy

This page is dedicated to collecting resources for library accessibility

The Resource List for My Poster Presentation at CUNY Queens College 2024 Student Showcase, GSLIS Conference [Dec. 5, 2024] The Opportunity to Thrive: Accessibility Challenges & Strategies for Digital Library Resources (Academic and Public)

The Opportunity to Thrive: Accessibility Challenges & Strategies for Digital Library Resources (Academic and Public)

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Abstract: The academic environment is where innovation and change begin and students learn best library practices. Public libraries in the United States offer more than an oasis for readers; these civic institutions are now community outreach centers and a bedrock of needed community services, including digital resources. People with disabilities are a demographic that needs equity in digital resources in both academic and public libraries. Accessibility and equity for digital resources have increased due to the enormous growth of digital library use. As such, librarians have an ethical duty to evaluate the difficulties in digital accessibility for patrons and investigate how to remediate these difficulties, from technical to attitudinal. The practical literature review in this presentation includes the background of disability rights and legislation, the importance of academic libraries to champion accessibility, the importance of public libraries as community resources, accessibility standards for online resources, and the particular challenges and strategies for digital library resources. Challenges include vendors’ lack of accessible products and prioritizing accessibility; Open Educational Resources and websites lacking readability; library research guides; libraries’ websites; and in library administration, policies, staff training, attitudes, and experience. Strategies and resources for these challenges are described and summarized, with links provided. The presentation includes a description of practical hurdles for libraries’ efforts in equity (such as funding and environmental impact). Strategies for each type of library may differ, but the importance of ensuring equity remains to help public and academic library patrons not only have equal access but also thrive using library resources.

My main source was my previous research paper: Fiano, A. R. (2024). Leveling the Academic Library Playing Field: Accessibility Challenges & Strategies for Digital Learning Resources Research paper for LBSCI 702 Spring 2024 (Milbrodt, professor)

Importance of Academic and Public Libraries

[1] Mills, J. E., Campana, K., & Martin, M. (2023). With passionate purpose. Journal of Library Outreach and Engagement, 3, 50–68. https://doi.org/10.21900/j.jloe.v3.950

[2] Clark, J. (2020). A coordinated effort: Cultural and policy requirements for digital accessibility. College & Undergraduate Libraries, 27(2–4), 265–280. https://doi-org.queens.ezproxy.cuny.edu/10.1080/10691316.2021.1932659 [19.4% of undergraduates and 11.9% of graduate students have some form of disability].

And, [2] Centers for Disease Control. Disability and Health Promotion. Disability impacts all of us. https://www.cdc.gov/ncbddd/disabilityandhealth/infographic-disability-impacts-all.html

[3, 4] Broido, E.M., Erwin, V.M., Stygles, K., Fraley, L., & Najdek, R. (2023). “Disability is Something You Can be Proud Of”: College Student Activists Claiming Disability Identities and Creating Cross-disability Communities. Journal of College Student Development, 64(3), 274-291. https://doi.org/10.1353/csd.2023.a901169

[4] Bélanger, A. (2022). Accessibility and public services – part 1: The case for access. International Information & Library Review, 54(2), 188–194. https://doi-org.queens.ezproxy.cuny.edu/10.1080/10572317.2022.2057768

[4] Bélanger, A. (2022). Accessibility and public services – part 2: When being user focused includes all users. International Information & Library Review, 54(3), 283–289. https://doi-org.queens.ezproxy.cuny.edu/10.1080/10572317.2022.2100047

[26, 27] Mullin, C., Gould, R., & Harris, S.P.. (2021). Research brief: Digital access for students in higher education and the ADA. The ADA National Network. https://adata.org/research_brief/research-brief-digital-access-students-higher-education-and-ada

Disability Legislation

Challenges

Citations listed with reference number from Poster Presentation

[1, 2] Bélanger, A. (2022). Accessibility and public services – part 1: The case for access. International Information & Library Review, 54(2), 188–194. https://doi-org.queens.ezproxy.cuny.edu/10.1080/10572317.2022.2057768

[1, 2] Bélanger, A. (2022). Accessibility and public services – part 2: When being user focused includes all users. International Information & Library Review, 54(3), 283–289. https://doi-org.queens.ezproxy.cuny.edu/10.1080/10572317.2022.2100047

[3] ADA.gov (April 8, 2024). Fact Sheet: New Rule on the Accessibility of Web Content and Mobile Apps Provided by State and Local Governments

[5] World Wide Web Consortium. (2023). Web content accessibility guidelines (WCAG) 2.1. https://www.w3.org/TR/WCAG21/#background-on-wcag-2

[5] World Wide Web Consortium. (2023). Introduction to understanding WCAG. https://www.w3.org/WAI/WCAG21/Understanding/intro#understanding-the-four-principles-of-accessibility

[5] World Wide Web Consortium. (n.d.) CSS color module level 3. https://www.w3.org/TR/css-color-3/#rgb-color

[6, 7] Clark, J. (2020). A coordinated effort: Cultural and policy requirements for digital accessibility. College & Undergraduate Libraries, 27(2–4), 265–280. https://doi-org.queens.ezproxy.cuny.edu/10.1080/10691316.2021.1932659

[8] Sherman, M. (n.d.). Accessibility in libraries: A landscape review. Accessibility in Libraries: a Landscape Review. https://www.ala.org/sites/default/files/tools/content/220928-ppo-ltc-access-landscape-review.pdf

[9] Zastrow, J. (2022, December). The digital archivist: The Environmental Impact of digital preservation – can digital ever go green? Information Today, Inc. https://www.infotoday.com/cilmag/dec22/Zastrow–The-Environmental-Impact-of-Digital-Preservation-Can-Digital-Ever-Go-Green.shtml

[10] Visser, C., Flohr, Y., & Shrivastava, R. (2024, August 8). The best fonts for dyslexia (guidelines for website owners). Accessibility Checker. https://www.accessibilitychecker.org/blog/best-fonts-for-dyslexia/

[11] Peet, L. (2014, February 12). A complex landscape: Budgets and funding 2024. Library Journal. https://www.libraryjournal.com/story/a-complex-landscape-budgets-and-funding-2024

[12] Kahle, B.. (2023, October 9). The US library system, once the best in the world, faces death by a thousand cuts . The Guardian. https://www.theguardian.com/commentisfree/2023/oct/09/us-library-system-attack-digital-licensing

[13] This election should not determine the fate of libraries (but it might have) – everylibrary. Every library. (2024, November 6). https://www.everylibrary.org/election2024

Other Concerns–Digital Accessibility Standards

[10] Mills, J. E., Campana, K., & Martin, M. (2023). With passionate purpose. Journal of Library Outreach and Engagement, 3, 50–68. https://doi.org/10.21900/j.jloe.v3.950

[20] World Wide Web Consortium. (2023). Web content accessibility guidelines (WCAG) 2.1. https://www.w3.org/TR/WCAG21/#background-on-wcag-2

And, WebAIM. (2024). Keyboard accessibility. Articles. https://webaim.org/techniques/keyboard/

[21] Nondiscrimination on the Basis of Disability; Accessibility of Web Information and Services of State and Local Government Entities, 88 F.R. 51948 (proposed August 4, 2023) (to be codified at 29 C.F.R. § 35). https://www.federalregister.gov/documents/2023/08/04/2023-15823/nondiscrimination-on-the-basis-of-disability-accessibility-of-web-information-and-services-of-state

[22] Peet, L. (2014, February 12). A complex landscape: Budgets and funding 2024. Library Journal. https://www.libraryjournal.com/story/a-complex-landscape-budgets-and-funding-2024

[25] Zastrow, J. (2022, December). The digital archivist: The Environmental Impact of digital preservation – can digital ever go green?. Information Today, Inc. https://www.infotoday.com/cilmag/dec22/Zastrow–The-Environmental-Impact-of-Digital-Preservation-Can-Digital-Ever-Go-Green.shtml

Other Concerns — Budget and Environmental

[22] Peet, L. (2014, February 12). A complex landscape: Budgets and funding 2024. Library Journal. https://www.libraryjournal.com/story/a-complex-landscape-budgets-and-funding-2024

[23] Kahle, B. (2023, October 9). The US library system, once the best in the world, faces death by a thousand cuts. The Guardian. https://www.theguardian.com/commentisfree/2023/oct/09/us-library-system-attack-digital-

[24] This election should not determine the fate of libraries (but it might have) – everylibrary. (2024, November 6). Every library. https://www.everylibrary.org/election2024

Stratagies/Solutions

[2] Azadbakht, E.,Schultz, T., & Arellano, J. (2021). Not open for all: accessibility of open textbooks. Insights, 34(1), 24. https://doi.org/10.1629/uksg.557

[3] Pope, B. M., &Creed-Dikeogu, G. F. (2022). Increasing accessibility to academic library services with alt text, color contrast, captioning, and transcripts in YouTube tutorials. Kansas Library Association College and University Libraries Section Proceedings, 12(1). https://doi.org/10.4148/2160-942X.1085

[2] Clark, J. (2020). A coordinated effort: Cultural and policy requirements for digital accessibility. College & Undergraduate Libraries, 27(2–4), 265–280. https://doi-org.queens.ezproxy.cuny.edu/10.1080/10691316.2021.1932659

[5] Sherman, M. (n.d.). Accessibility in libraries: A landscape review. Accessibility in Libraries: a Landscape Review. https://www.ala.org/sites/default/files/tools/content/220928-ppo-ltc-access-landscape-review.pdf

[7] Kimura, A. K. (2018). Defining, evaluating, and achieving accessible library resources: A review of theories and methods. Reference Services Review, 46(3), 425-438. https://doi.org/10.1108/RSR-03-2018-0040

[12, 13] Armano, T., Capietto, A., Coriasco, S., Murru, N., Ruighi, A., Taranto, E. (2018). An automatized method based on LaTeX for the realization of accessible PDF documents containing formulae. In: Miesenberger, K., Kouroupetroglou, G. (eds) Computers Helping People with Special Needs. ICCHP 2018. Lecture Notes in Computer Science(), vol 10896. Springer, Cham. https://doi.org/10.1007/978-3-319-94277-3_91

[12] Jenčik, M., Grincova, A., Simsik, D., & Galajdova, A. (2022). E-Learning study support and accessible documents creation for students with special needs. 2022 IEEE 16th International Scientific Conference on Informatics (Informatics), 142–148. https://doi.org/10.1109/Informatics57926.2022.10083394

[15] WebAIM. (2024). Keyboard accessibility. Articles. https://webaim.org/techniques/keyboard/

[15] W3.org PDF3: Ensuring correct tab and reading order in PDF documents. https://www.w3.org/TR/WCAG20-TECHS/PDF3.html

[15, 16] Pope, B. M., &Creed-Dikeogu, G. F. (2022). Increasing accessibility to academic library services with alt text, color contrast, captioning, and transcripts in YouTube tutorials. Kansas Library Association College and University Libraries Section Proceedings, 12(1). https://doi.org/10.4148/2160-942X.1085

[11, 24] UW Libraries. (2023, March 29). Values in practice: holding our vendors accountable for accessibility. UW Libraries Blog. Universities Libraries. University of Washington. https://sites.uw.edu/libstrat/2023/03/29/values-in-practice-holding-our-vendors-accountable-for-accessibility/

[16] World Wide Web Consortium. (2023). Web content accessibility guidelines (WCAG) 2.1. https://www.w3.org/TR/WCAG21/#background-on-wcag-2

[16] World Wide Web Consortium. (2023). Introduction to understanding WCAG. https://www.w3.org/WAI/WCAG21/Understanding/intro#understanding-the-four-principles-of-accessibility

[16] World Wide Web Consortium. (n.d.) CSS color module level 3. https://www.w3.org/TR/css-color-3/#rgb-color

[19] Todor Todorov, Galina Bogdanova, & Nikolay Noev. (2022). Accessibility Challenges with CAPTCHA Services in Digital Libraries. Digital Presentation and Preservation of Cultural and Scientific Heritage, 12. https://doi.org/10.55630/dipp.2022.12.23

Links to Resources

The American Library Association with resources and tools: https://www.ala.org/pla/resources/tools/community-engagement-outreach/universal-access https://www.ala.org/rusa/virtual-accessibility

The DAISY Consortium https://daisy.org/guidance/info-help/guidance-training/daisy-tools/creating-accessible-word-documents/

Adobe. (2024, January 9). Creating accessible PDFs. Acrobat User Guide. https://helpx.adobe.com/acrobat/using/creating-accessible-pdfs.html

Adobe, “Create and verify PDF accessibility (Acrobat Pro).” This site explains how to run automated checks on PDF documents.

American Library Association (ALA), “Accessibility.” This site from the ALA provides (through dropdown menu) guides and explanations on PDF, web pages, and Word documents, testing for accessibility, and links to other providers of accessibility sources.

Association of College and Research Libraries,“Introductory Resources and Bibliography of Library Web Accessibility.” This site provides accessibility resources including links to third party web accessibility tests of major library databases, ebooks, and other vendor products (provided by the Big 10 Academic Alliance). https://connect.ala.org/communities/community-home/librarydocuments/viewdocument?DocumentKey=49C5FC44-E12B-45FD-8B1C-60235254E0F4

Digital.gov, “Accessibility.” This US Government site has pages including best practices in accessible writing for the web (content, images, headers, emails URLs, etc.). https://digital.gov/topics/accessibility/

Disability & Philanthropy Forum, “Creating Accessible Resources.” This site offers guides, tool, and links for accessibility checking and creating files in Word, PowerPoint, image descriptions, data visualization, and more. https://disabilityphilanthropy.org/resource/creating-accessible-resources/

Color Contrast: I have two. WebAIM https://webaim.org/resources/contrastchecker/

And Colour Contrast Analyser (TPGi) (Version 3.1.4). This site has a downloadable application to test color contrast in content. It also has resources, webinars, and more for UX, inclusive design, and usability testing. https://www.tpgi.com/color-contrast-checker

Family Video Game Database. This site has user feedback on accessibility in games. Users can filter a search for games with accessibility. https://www.taminggaming.com/

Minnesota IT Services, “Digital Accessibility Quick Cards.” This site from the Minnesota state government has downloadable PDF guides with tips on accessibility for Adobe Acrobat, Word, Excel, social media, interactive web maps, and more. https://mn.gov/mnit/about-mnit/accessibility/accessibility-quick-cards.jsp

PressBooks, “Google Sheets.” This site provides extensive tips and explanations for formatting Google Sheet documents. https://pressbooks.library.torontomu.ca/docs/chapter/google-sheets/

W3C. Web Content Accessibility Guidelines (WCAG 2.1), “Introduction to Web Accessibility.” This page has many links about accessibility, assessing accessibly, and various tutorials. https://www.w3.org/WAI/fundamentals/accessibility-intro/ Also, “Resources for Getting Started with Digital Accessibility” which has a linked free online course on digital accessibility. https://www.w3.org/WAI/roles/new/

What about Guidelines in other languages? W3C has some translations of guidelines here: https://www.w3.org/WAI/standards-guidelines/wcag/translations/

W3Schools, “HTML Color Picker.” This page provides an interactive display where a user chooses a color and can see how the color as a background contrasts with black or white text. The user can lighten and darken the color by degrees. https://www.w3schools.com/colors/colors_picker.asp

WAVE (Web Accessibility Evaluation Tools). This site can test web pages for accessibility. Upon putting a URL in the WAVE tool, it provides a report on possible errors, problems in links, structural elements, contrast errors, heading errors, and more. Unlike services like SiteImprove, WAVE is free to use and doesn’t require signing up or giving an email. https://wave.webaim.org/

Making PDF mathematical formulas, graphs, and tables accessible. The Latex Project: https://www.latex-project.org/ and aXcessibility https://ctan.org/tex-archive/macros/latex/contrib/axessibility

More on using aXcessibility: Wang, L. L., Bragg, J., & Weld, D. S. (2023). Paper to HTML: a publicly available web tool for converting scientific PDFs into accessible HTML. ACM SIGACCESS Accessibility and Computing, 134, 1–1. https://doi.org/10.1145/3582298.3582299

Google Docs Accessibility Checker and Grackle Docs. These are a third-party extension. Once installed, you can go to “Extensions” in your Google Doc and use either to analyze. I tried it; works well. https://workspace.google.com/marketplace/app/accessibility_checker_for_docs/452529936240 https://workspace.google.com/marketplace/app/grackle_docs/1085622905455

Grackle also has a separate extension for Google Slides: https://workspace.google.com/marketplace/app/grackle_slides/273764076887

I did not realize Microsoft Word has an accessibility checker, as described here: https://it.umn.edu/services-technologies/how-tos/google-docs-use-accessibility-checker

The Library Accessibility Alliance, sharing audits on vendors of databases/journals: https://www.libraryaccessibility.org/

This program, Sa11y, through its Bookmarklet, can evaluate pages in other languages as a web browser extension: https://sa11y.netlify.app/bookmarklet/

This educational handbook has good descriptions of different types of disability and also what to check for in digital tools: https://edtechbooks.org/digitaltoolsapps/evaluatingaccessibility

This journal article specifically examines videos created by universities and courses: T. Acosta, P. Acosta-Vargas, J. Zambrano-Miranda and S. Luján-Mora. (2020). Web Accessibility Evaluation of Videos Published on YouTube by Worldwide Top-Ranking Universities. IEEE Access, vol. 8, pp. 110994-111011, 2020, doi: 10.1109/ACCESS.2020.3002175. https://ieeexplore.ieee.org/document/9115660

Image Credits for Presentation:

Accessibility Logo UN 10 August 20220 Attribution to Pablo Busatto from https://web.archive.org/web/20150712222651/https://www.un.org/webaccessibility/logo.shtml with UploadWizard

Accessibility Image from US National Archives and Records Administration 10/29/2024

Disability pride flag and info from: https://www.weinberg.cuimc.columbia.edu/news/history-disability-pride-flag

From Flaticon:

Iconfromus

Freepik

Ida Desi Mariana

Vectors Tank

Dighital Design

Shmai

Rockmah Afif

Small.smiles